


MSR Moments

by agoodwoman



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, MSR
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-11 11:56:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 62
Words: 46,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7049641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agoodwoman/pseuds/agoodwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabbles and prompts; these are all in chronological order for the show. New chapters posted will have *NEW* next to the chapter title for one week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Season 1, Beyond the Sea

The television flickered in front of her and the empty line was ringing in her ear. Her mother hung up on her four minutes ago and the vision of her father was gone. She barely got to speak with him that night outside of how the military had changed, how much he was proud of Bill for becoming a captain and for Charlie for proposing to his college girlfriend.

Her mind wanted to point out that he failed to mention Melissa’s latest job venture with pottery but he asked about her “work.” At least he mentioned that even if it was at her mother’s insistence.

Maybe this was the anger part of her feelings of grief.

She needed to get out of her apartment or do something. She couldn’t stay there after the scent of his cologne lingered in the living room where they shared coffee.

Showing up at Mulder’s apartment twenty minutes later was obviously not in her plans either but there she was. His eyebrows shot up as he opened the door to her. He was in sweatpants and soft grey t-shirt. He looked rumpled but not like he had been sleeping. He looked inviting and warm.

“Hi.”

He sounded just like he did that day he checked her for mosquito bites.

“My father died,” Scully blurted. “I didn’t know… I didn’t know what else to do…”

He pulled her in by her shoulder in that way he liked to handle her during their cases when he wanted her to follow him by pushing her through the door first or down a hallway to discuss something in private.

By nature, she wasn’t a tactile person whereas Mulder most definitely was. He didn’t go more than an hour in their day without placing a hand on her shoulder or knee and never in the ways that the sexual harassment videos warned her were bad. She never felt a nefarious intention.

He closed the door behind her and pulled her over to the couch where the sports portion of the news was playing.

“I didn’t realize there was a one o’clock sports news update,” Scully noted as she sat down.

“Oh yeah, you get all the highlights without the forced banter between anchors,” Mulder quipped as he sat on the coffee table across from her.

What he was really saying was that he had insomnia and he watched the television to drown out the noise in his mind that kept him awake. She worried about him.

A tear fell down her cheek and she wiped it away with a shaking hand.

“Scully…” Mulder started and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Dana.”

She never heard her call her anything other than by her last name and the sound of her given name sounded so foreign on his tongue.

“I have to go see my mother in the morning…” she said absently as he took her hands in his and rubbed his thumbs across them. It felt comforting. She looked up into his eyes and saw the pain he was taking on for her. “It was a heart attack.”

Mulder was experienced in loss. He wasn’t meant to be an only child and yet there he was. “What can I do?”

“I don’t know,” she replied.

She was an intensely private person and sharing this with him felt exposing in a way she wasn’t ready for. She didn’t want him to treat her any different when she came into work. They were still finding their footing as partners and this kind of emotional liability wasn’t something she could afford at the FBI. These were the arguments that should have entered her mind before she grabbed her purse and drove to his apartment.

Mulder kissed the backs of her hands and knelt on the floor in front of the couch. He pushed her knees apart slightly and she looked up to study his face. Again, she didn’t see a wicked intention.

“It’s called a hug, Scully,” he jested.

The usage of her last name made her relax a little.

He pulled her body towards his and he wrapped her in a strong embrace. He smelled like fresh laundry and soap as though he had a late shower after a long run. It was what he told her he was doing when she explained she couldn’t go to the Smithsonian that evening to look through the archives because her parents were coming over. He wanted her there so he said he’d go for a run and eat take out.

She took a long breath and Mulder pressed his mouth into her hair. She still had that clip in it that she wore especially for her father’s visit. She wasn’t a child but she desperately had wanted his approval of what she was doing with her life. He wanted a medical doctor as a daughter. He liked her scientific mind and drive to serve the greater good. Ahab didn’t see the irony in that she was on a bigger path with the FBI.

“He asked about work,” Scully said. “He never asked me how the FBI was as a job even after I left medical school and worked at Quantico. We barely talked about my choices after I left medicine and I just…”

“You’re someone people would be proud of Scully,” Mulder reassured her.

“You don’t know my father,” she scoffed into his neck.

The back and forth of their usual banter continued as he held her. It was cut off when the tears poured out suddenly and Mulder ignored the lack of discussion for a long and solid cry. He reached behind him to grab a tissue from a box on the table. She clutched his shirt in her fingers as the sobs subsided and she took the tissue from his hand to cover her puffy face.

His cool fingers wrapped around her wrists to pull her hands away and she wiped at her nose and eyes.

“Maybe this is insensitive but you’re pretty when you cry,” he commented.

“That sounds like a bad song lyric,” she said as she took another tissue and glanced up at his eyes. He shrugged. “I think that’s a lie but I’ll take the compliment anyway.”

“Take it,” Mulder replied as he sat on the couch next to her and pulled her body towards hers. “You’re not good with compliments at all but you should take that one.”

It felt easy to be with him in this setting and she found her mind whirring as it tried to shut down. Her eyes felt heavy.

“I don’t want to fall asleep on you,” she protested as he wiggled closer to her on the couch.

“I won’t hold it against you if you do, Scully.”


	2. Season 1, Gender Bender

There was something off about the Kindred but Mulder didn’t anticipate the sexual element from their people. He was anticipating a defect or a self rejected member of their society. He didn’t foresee the entire people to be able to touch and entice like walking Spanish Fly.

Even more so, it bothered him to see Scully affected by it. She could have died and all because he wasn’t watching out for her, he was looking for the truth. He told himself as he fetched her some hot chocolate that she was a capable agent with the same training as him. She was a scientist and a doctor. She carried a gun so she should have been able to protect herself.

But she didn’t. She was flat on her back when he burst into Brother Andrew’s room and unresponsive to Andrews touch. After the time he had worked with Scully he saw a passionate person, someone whose mind matched his own. Someone who could discuss any topic with him until it exhausted them both. That was not the woman he walked in on.

She looked drugged and he pulled her shirt and jacket closed to try to maintain some dignity. His arm went around her protectively to help her make her way back to the forest. They needed to get to a hospital to make sure she wasn’t poisoned like the others.

The small clinic inside Steveston opened at the late hour so Scully could be looked over. Mulder insisted upon it after she lost the contents of her stomach near a rickety barn on the Kindred property.

Her eyes were glassy on the ride into town and she was breathing shallow. Mulder wasn’t the man you wanted in a medical situation since his last first aid class expired in June and he had yet to go back for more training. He practically carried her into the medical office and was promptly shooed away once he had her on the exam table.

He waited thirty seven minutes while Dr. Hannah Brewster looked over Scully and he had a pile of discarded sunflower shells in the palm of his hand.

“Is she okay?” Mulder asked as he stood up from his chair in the waiting room at Doctor Brewster’s office.

She was the the in town physician and agreed came down to her office when he explainedthe situation.

She nodded at Mulder and put her hands in her white coat pockets. “She’s slightly dehydrated from vomiting and I gave her some aspirin but she’s not showing any signs of a toxin. She’s just getting dressed. She’ll be out in a minute.”

“Thank you,” Mulder leaned his head back and nodded at her. A thought occurred to him. “Why is she-”

“I offered a rape kit,” Dr. Brewster replied. “Standard procedure when a woman comes in with those symptoms. Not too often around here but Dana agreed.”

Mulder sat down in his chair and he felt his own bile rising in this throat.

“It came back negative,” she offered.

He knew it would but the very thought made him sick. “Thank you, again.”

Scully emerged with a plastic covered toothbrush and travel toothpaste in her hand and a regretful look. “Thank you, Hannah.”

Dr. Brewster put a comforting hand on Scully’s elbow and Mulder held his arm out to guide Scully out to the car.

“How do you feel about hot chocolate?” Mulder asked.

Their partnership was new and he hadn’t seen her drink it before but to him it was a comforting drink.

“I like it,” she admitted and he helped her to the car.

The drive two blocks over to the diner was silent and Scully requested to stay in the car. She insisted she wasn’t hungry but he wanted to get her soup or something else.

“Thanks,” she said as he handed her the hot Styrofoam cup.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

Scully took a hesitant sip. “Better… A little embarrassed actually.”

“Why? You don’t remember any of it,” he reminded her.

He felt a little mad at her for getting herself in that situation but it was misplaced anger at himself. They really should have called for back up but Mulder was Mr. Trust No One with local police.

He had just overheard her say “it’s hard to believe in this day in age people would go to bed with a perfect stranger” and he believed her. He believed she was the kind of woman who waited five dates before sleeping with a man and only if she really liked him. And seeing her placid on the bed scared the shit out of him because prior to that moment, he hadn’t thought of Scully in that scenario before. Okay that was a lie, he had but he tried not to.

Now he couldn’t get it out of his head. She had been vulnerable and could have died.

“It’s like I don’t remember…” her voice trailed off and she glanced at his face. This incident had broken more than a few rules in her book.

“Why didn’t you get out of there before he…” Mulder made a gesture as to imply the attempted assault.

“Because he told me he knew who the killer was,” she replied simply.

“How do you know he wasn’t the killer?” he challenged.

“I believed him.”

Well sure he could understand that. And now they were going back to Germantown to interview a very embarrassed young man who had a similar encounter as Scully. This time he wouldn’t leave her side.


	3. Season 2, Post Irresistible

Mulder set the small bag with Scully’s overnight things on the chair by the door to her motel room and looked around at the accommodations he had picked for them. Minneapolis offered a number of cheap hotels but this place really took the cake.

They weren’t supposed to be staying at five star motels. They were supposed to stay within the guidelines of the per Diem the FBI allotted them but when your partner was just kidnapped and locked in a closet by a death fetishist maybe you decide to spring for a nicer place.

“Don’t take your coat off,” Mulder said suddenly. “We’re going somewhere else.”

Scully stood in the middle of the room with a catatonic expression. She had a scrape on her chin, her lip was cut and her hair was pulled up into a pony tail. They took her clothes for evidence and she was wearing scrubs from the hospital that they gave her after performing a rape kit.

Mulder felt sick to his stomach. She shouldn’t look like this to him so often. On the edge, teetering to fall into sadness because of their work.

“Where are we going?” she asked lightly as she followed him obediently to the door.

“Someplace nicer,” he said and crossed the hall to his room to gather his things.

Scully stood in the hallway and watched as he threw his clothes and toiletries bag into his suitcase. She didn’t ask why or where. She was obviously not concerned with details at this point.

The hotel clerk gave him a wary expression and he flashed his badge as he asked if they had government rates. The suspicious glance from the middle-aged man turned to one of understanding and he said they would get fifteen per cent off their stay.

Mulder bypassed the check out process at their two star motel and drove them fifteen minutes to the Westin. He booked them one room with a king sized bed and a couch. As they arrived on the fourth floor Mulder put one arm around her shoulders and walked her slowly down the hall.

He was feeling protective and anxious. He was feeling wound tight but knew that if he reacted it might not help how Scully was feeling. He could see the vulnerability in her eyes when she emerged from her exam with red wrists and wet eyes that they had done a full work up on her. The doctor told her she wasn’t raped but she showed signs of abuse on her body.

Agent Bocks had told them to come by in the morning but the case was as good as closed. They would have to return to Minneapolis for the court date and Mulder would be there to insist they throw the switch and fry the bastard.

“Mulder,” she finally spoke. She was standing at the door of the bathroom and looking at the deep tub.

“Do you need a shower?” he asked. He could only imagine she would want to rinse off the feeling of spending those hours trapped in a closet at the Pfaster residence.

Scully nodded and Mulder grabbed her toiletries kit and pajamas from her bag. He listened to the shower turn on and her sobbing from the other side of the door. It was the longest twenty minutes of his life.

When she emerged she had pink skin and shorter nails. Her wet hair was brushed back away from her face and her eyes were raw. She took in his appearance as he stood in front of her in sweatpants and a t-shirt with bare feet and the intimacy of the situation was amplified by the pain she was enduring. She was exposed in front of him and he was being as gentle with her as he could.

“Mulder…” she started and she shook her head at the tears that were trying to fall. “Um… I don’t want to make you feel-”

“What do you need?” he asked. At this point he would give her anything.

“Can you…” Scully looked at the bed and he nodded.

“Okay.”

He would hold her all night if she needed. He could sleep on the couch or the floor. The guilt to her becoming a near victim knew no boundaries.

Mulder visited the bathroom to brush his teeth and when he found her she was staring at the closet that was slightly ajar across from her.

Tomorrow morning when she would give her detailed report of what happened to her in that house Mulder would find himself filled with rage but for now he could only know what happened through the way she looked at formally benign items.

He approached behind her and pulled back the soft sheets for her climb into the middle of the bed. He turned off the lights around them except for the bedside light and he wrapped himself around her.

“Better?” he asked quietly and she nodded.

Her hair was curling under his chin as it dried and dripped onto the pillow. He pressed himself completely into her and she fell asleep quickly with her hand holding onto his. He held her when she woke up from a nightmare, he rubbed her back as she threw up in the toilet the next morning and he never looked at her like she was anything less than capable for enduring such a thing as Donnie Pfaster.


	4. Season 2, During Humbug

She rushed out of bed like she had any other time while on a case in the middle of her REM sleep. Up quickly, pants on, knee high nylons to go under her shoes and out the door without a brush through her hair. Dana Scully could be ready and alert in four minutes without coffee or coaxing. The crash would come eventually. The number of times she had been woken in the middle of the night since being assigned to the X-Files reminded her of her residency in medical school.

As she walked through the trailer park toward Mr. Nutt's office, she realized her bra had been forgotten but she didn't have much choice at the time. Lanny had stood awkwardly in at the door of her trailer while she dressed with her back to him. Suit jacket, pants and shoes had been clumsily donned while Lanny moaned “He’s gone! He’s gone!”

Mulder was already inside in the T-shirt he wore to bed and his suit pants. Scully wondered if Lanny broke into his trailer or someone had the decency to knock to wake him up. They didn't look particularly professional but no one around there would comment on it.

"Scully, c'mere!" he called to her as she was still outside.

_How did he know when she was within earshot? If he wanted to investigate sixth senses, he should put himself in the case file to include his radar of her presence._

"I don't know if a contortionist could get through that dog door but look at this," Mulder said and picked up the diseased Mr. Nutt's arm to reveal a pin from Dr. Blockhead.

She brushed her hair behind her ear and glanced around at the scene of the attack. When she looked back, Mulder was glancing up from the cross dangling around her neck and he looked down immediately at Mr. Nutt's body.

Lanny became so irate, Sheriff Hamilton offered to take him to the drunk tank. Lanny seemed happier in the arms of the Sheriff but it was probably because from one former performer to another, they were both living in the real world so to speak.

"We'll take Jeffrey Swaim into custody," Mulder announced as Hamilton escorted Lanny to his car.

"You know Mulder," Scully began as she stood up also. "I was beginning to think this case involved something more- um?"

"Freakish?" Mulder offered and she shrugged her shoulders, nodding at the word reluctantly. "You really shouldn't complain about banalities, Scully when the main suspect is the human blockhead."

He exited the trailer and she sighed. This case wasn't fitting right and she didn't look at Dr. Blockhead as an actual suspect. She'd sooner suspect the Fiji mermaid with the lack of motive for Blockhead to turn on his landlord.

She joined Mulder outside on the porch and they looked over the tree line beyond the trailers and into the starry night sky that escaped them in the metropolis of Washington.

"It's beautiful out here," she commented with the assumption he was taking in the view with the same appreciation.

"A little _cool_ ," Mulder noted and she looked up to see him glancing down at her chest again. This time a little more blatant but his eyes diverted to her face quickly. "Not that it's a _bad_ thing. It's pretty nice..."

Scully's bare breasts under her purple night shirt had noted the temperature drop from inside Mr. Nutt's office. She realized just then her nipples were at full attention. She buttoned her suit jacket immediately but the damage was done. He looked, she knew he looked and now they had that hanging between them.

"I should, um..."

"I need to get my jacket and gun from my cabin," Mulder muttered.

She nodded in agreement and walked slowly behind him toward their accommodations. Inside her trailer, she felt too many things at once. He noticed her body as more than the thing he was pushing out of danger or holding onto when the storm hit. He noticed her breasts and didn't react like a virginal seventeen-year-old looking at his first bare chest.

The tenting in his trousers as they stood on the porch was slight and she didn't know what to make of it. They were in a weird place since she returned to work after her abduction. He was careful with her but also tried to take her to the football game with plans for dinner beforehand like it was what? A date? If she was a man or he was a woman, she would assume Mulder was being friendly and told herself it was probably just a gesture of friendship.

On the other hand, the man made so many innuendos she didn't know where the lines were and it made for some awkward moments when she fell asleep on him on the plane, waking up to holding his hand and him not minding it.

Mulder knocked on her trailer door as she was putting on her green fitted shirt. "Sorry."

"Nothing you haven't seen before," she commented since he had seen her almost nude on their first case. 

Neither of them brought that moment up prior to now and she was grateful for it. That embarrassment and then relief at his gentlemanly behaviour lingered for a little longer than she liked. Admittedly, she was being pretty flippant about it but it was only a small patch of skin he had seen. It wasn't like he walked in on her completely naked.

"Want me to check you for mosquito bites?" he asked as she put on her suit jacket. “I could grab a candle from my trailer.”

Scully picked up her gun from her kitchen table and hooked it onto the back of her pants. "Maybe later."

Mulder nodded and followed her outside. "You should feel free to give me a _thorough_ examination too, Scully."

She looked up at him and narrowed her eyes. "In this climate, I'm sure you'll get a few bites, Mulder."

"As long as it's not the Fiji mermaid, I guess I shouldn't worry," he deadpanned and began to cross the trailer park to arrest Dr. Blockhead.

 


	5. Season 2, Secret Smoking

She kept telling herself it was a genetic predisposition to nicotine since her mother had smoked for years and her grandparents had also. She told herself that if she only had one or two a day, it wasn’t really a habit and she told herself that she could quit any time because it wasn’t really something she did all that often.

Scully’s thumb pushed across the flint on the lighter as she lit her cigarette and took her first drag. The smoke billowed out between her lips. Good. Satisfying.

There were little lies she told herself every day about how she was living her life and going back to work with Mulder. They seemed to parallel her little habit that she told herself wasn’t a habit. She could stop any time but the nicotine rushing through her system and the addictive properties they laced the tobacco with were yelling at her subconscious that she was a damned liar.

She took another drag and looked at the filter between her fingers as she blew the smoke away from herself as to reduce the lingering scent. Three more drags and she could get back into the hospital to finish the autopsy on the latest victim.

In her purse, inside a smaller tote and next with the pack of cigarettes was a travel toothbrush and toothpaste, perfume and her lotion. She packed tampons on top to prevent Mulder from searching further and for the last two years of working with him. It had worked really well up to that point but sometimes he looked at her with a curiosity when she took that tote out of her bag on a day he knew wasn’t a menstrual day to leave for a few minutes.

She took one last long drag and pushed the ember into the cement wall before putting the half-smoked cigarette back into her peach coloured tote. Scully pulled on the lever on the heavy door and before she could take a step into the hallway walked right into Mulder.

“Jesus, Mulder!”

“I thought you were doing the autopsy on Harold Meeks,” he said with his hands on his hips.

He did that when talking to her as though being slightly authoritative towards her and an abduction with three months missing would make her suddenly believe that these deaths were related to little grey men.

“I was just getting some fresh air,” she muttered and stepped around him to get to the closest bathroom. “I just need to wash my hands.”

Mulder followed her down the hallway back to the autopsy bays and then into the ladies bathroom.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he leaned against the bathroom wall.

“No one is down here, it’s two o’clock in the morning,” Mulder said with a shrug. “Wait, did you need to pee?”

Scully’s back straightened. “No.”

“Well go about your business,” he said with a wave of his hand like he was the king and he was allowing her a moment of personal time before calling her back to court for his amusement.

“Mulder can I have a minute?” Scully snapped.

His eyes flickered over to the peach bag. “It’s not the seventh.”

“You did not just say-”

“I know what you’ve been doing,” he interrupted. “At first I thought you were having some medical issues since your return. Then I thought maybe that was your make up bag and you were taking it to the rest room to touch up.”

Mulder crossed the bathrooms to the bank of sinks where she stood and she turned to face him with her arms crossed. He leaned across to her face and studied her.

“Then I realized what you were doing.”

He took a few preliminary whiffs and stood up.

“What are you doing?”

“I can smell it on you after you’ve sprayed perfume, brushed your teeth and washed your hands. It lingers on you even if you stand upwind from it,” he replied. He took another step towards her and smelled her hair. “It lingers on your hair.”

“So I smoke occasionally,” Scully said as she pushed on his chest. He didn’t budge so she took a step back. She took the toothpaste and toothbrush out of the peach tote. “Are you going to watch me?”

“You’re defensive because you shouldn’t do it,” Mulder said as he took her wrist gently. “If you’re not ashamed of it you wouldn’t be hiding it.”

“Maybe I don’t want a lecture,” she quipped as she tugged her wrist from his grasp and applied the paste to the brush.

She leaned over the sink to rid the taste of cigarettes from her palate and spit the minty foam. She wiped the edge of her mouth and looked at him with a challenging look in her eyes.

Mulder reached out slowly and got the last bit of toothpaste she missed and wiped his fingers on his suit pants. He leaned in towards her and sniffed again. He was close enough to kiss her but he didn’t kiss her. He touched her in ‘safe’ zones that excited her. He brushed his body against hers. He lingered in her space longer than necessary but he didn’t kiss her. His mouth was inches from hers and she almost wanted to challenge that too but she was too confused by his concern.

“I hate smoking,” Mulder told her. His face pushed against her scrubs and he pulled away slightly. “I wish you’d quit. It reminds me of too many bad things.”

So now he was pulling on her heart strings.

Scully looked up at his eyes and saw them change from one of disapproval to sadness to something else. Their proximity was affecting both of them and tried to hide it but he could see through every mask she ever wore when she felt anything. Sometimes he let her pretend and others he call her on.

Mulder’s mouth moved a little closer and he pressed his lips softly to hers. It was not chaste but it had the underlying tones of a hesitant kiss. His body pushed hers into the wall of the bathroom stall next to the sink as his mouth explored hers. She tasted his coffee and salted seeds on her tongue under the mint and cigarettes.

She could feel a hardness against her belly and he grabbed at the flesh of her backside through her pants. He was a full body kisser, the kind that took over everything in her system and she felt elated to feel this kind of excitement with him. She once told herself that kisses with Mulder would be bad to prevent herself from wanting him this way.

When he broke the kiss he looked at her with lidded eyes and ground his pelvis against hers. “I prefer the kisses that don’t have that underlying taste.”

“Is this a condition on our partnership?” she asked.

Partnership covered all manner of sins her body ached for.

Mulder kissed at the base of her neck. “I would like for it to be.”

Scully closed her eyes as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’ll work on that.”

“Please do,” Mulder mumbled and sunk his teeth into her flesh. “I’ll give you one of these otherwise for every cigarette you smoke. Somewhere noticeable.”

Scully jerked away but his mouth had a better grip. “Are we fifteen?”

“Secret smoking sounds like something a teenager would do,” he noted and kissed the marked flesh. “I hope you brought high collar shirts, Scully.”

She hated when his arguments were stronger than hers.


	6. Season 2, Dod Kalm

The knock on her front door was what woke her up. Normally she usually get out of bed early on Saturday mornings but since their return from the ship of ghosts, she found herself wanting to sleep in. 

Eventually she would get back to her routine but in the meantime she appreciated the extra Z’s and allowed her body to tell her when she needed the rest. With all the stress she had recently from chasing Mulder all over the United States it was no wonder she didn’t sleep more. The last time she felt this relation to stress was medical school and she picked up smoking. 

Another knock on the door and she realized whoever was standing there wasn’t going away. 

“Come on, Scully, I got you a present!” Mulder called from the hallway. 

Her heart sank. Not because Mulder on the weekend was bad but he seemed to have a plan. When he came by with food and a case to discuss she could let him in, make her apartment loud with his presence and his constant talking and she could eventually kick him out when she needed to go to the grocery store or her mother called. But he had a plan which meant she wasn’t able to hide away at home and recover from the week. A plan meant maybe a hike to somewhere remote and a long Sunday where she scrubbed dirt out of all of her clothing. A plan could mean not being in the office Monday morning and calling Skinner frantically from New Mexico asking him if he would approve their travel plans to get home. 

Saturday was okay to be quiet and alone. Saturday was for being antisocial and hiding from other people. Sundays were meant for social outings. Sundays could mean church if she felt like it, lunch with her mother or shopping to pick up something new for the office. 

Not that Mulder ever noticed, her mind interjected, but she didn’t wear such things for him. Yeah right.

On the other side of the door was an unshaven but freshly showered Mulder in casual clothing and holding hot coffee. Maybe all of those things were reasons she let him in.

“Good morning,” she greeted.

Mulder brushed past her into the apartment before giving her pink camisole and white flannel pants a once over. It was a matching set she was given at her birthday and she didn’t bring such things on the road because Mulder loved to pop into her room at night. 

“Pink is my favourite,” he commented at the shirt. 

That he notices, her mind quipped and she pulled her fuzzy white robe closed. You’re not wearing a bra, Dana of course he notices. 

“I got you a present,” he said as he handed her the coffee when she joined him in the kitchen. “I brought hot coffee, warm bagels and real cream cheese to spread. And I brought you a present.”

“What kind of present?” she asked warily. 

They had just gotten back from Florida and she worried this had something to do with the Fiji Mermaid. Mulder loved to hold onto something like that.

“Don’t worry, it’s not tickets to the circus,” he assured her. 

“Good because you know-”

“I know, no clowns,” he interrupted. “We never made it to the game in Minneapolis.”

“Oh,” Scully said with a nod. 

They didn’t make it because of Donnie Pfaster being a certifiable serial killer and sadist who focused his gaze on Scully. 

“There’s a game this afternoon,” he said happily. “I got great seats.”

“This afternoon then why-”

“I just wanted to spend the day with you,” he said with a shrug and she narrowed her eyes. “Honest.”

“Mulder I’m not painting my face or my stomach for this game,” she warned as she headed toward her bathroom. He snapped his fingers in mock disappointment but her back was already to him. “Give me ten minutes.”

As she showered and dressed herself in jeans and a fitted sweater she realized this was Mulder’s way of being social. No plans, no forethought to if she was free but the assumption she would go when it wasn’t work related. That was somewhat nice until she realized he just assumed she didn’t have plans. 

When she found him he was setting bagels onto plates and smiling at her hopefully. “Schmear?”

“What if I had plans today?” Scully asked as she sat down across from him.

“Do you?” he asked with a mouth full of bagel.

“No…”

“So?”

“Mulder what’s the catch?” she asked. “What’s the hook for these great seats and you coming so early?”

“I might have promised Frohike you’d call him this morning for his birthday and maybe you’d… call him Melvin when you did,” he said and winced before she could react. “Nothing dirty implied!”

The schmear was good, the bagels were hot and the coffee had a hint of hazelnut. 

Scully held out her hand for Mulder’s cell phone. “You have to leave the apartment while I do this.”

Mulder’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

“Yeah I don’t want you watching me while I’m being nice,” she said with a reluctant smile. 

Mulder dialed the phone and handed it to her in delight. 

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” she muttered as the phone rang. She moved herself to her bedroom. “Don’t you touch my bagel while I’m gone!”


	7. Season 2. Easter Supper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Wetwired there is a picture of Scully on Maggie's bedside table. After a conversation with a fellow writer, I decided how that picture came to be.

It was the first Easter the Scully family had celebrated together since the passing of William Scully Sr. Melissa flew in from California, Bill Jr. was on a three-week leave and Charlie had flown up from Louisana where he had been working with a non-profit organization.

Maggie Scully had decided to keep the Easter gathering to just family this time. When Dana showed up that morning to help with the preparations,  Maggie said that the housekeeper would be there later but the hard work would be up to them that day.

Just like old times, the third child of Margaret and William Scully mused to herself.

The catered dinners with staff became a thing once Bill Sr. was put on his last tour and the Navy put him in their new housing in Bethesda. Growing up, family meals with twenty people were always done with the hard work of many volunteered hands.

In Maggie Scully’s home, the last name moniker was dropped and she was just Dana. The medical school rebel who joined the FBI and worked with a tall man who only went by his last name. This man was someone Dana’s sister had some disagreements with and Bill thought was dangerous. Maggie knew he was a friend to Dana and Charlie could not be more curious.

As they waited on the turkey to be basted yet again, the family gathered in the backyard with cold drinks to enjoy the early spring warmth. By three p.m. Scully felt a buzz in her brain from her second glass of white wine and only a few pieces of fruit in her stomach.

Melissa was walking around with a camera and getting pictures of the family. She had a few good ones of Bill and Tara, the sister-in-law they had yet to warm up to. Charlie held the camera away from them to take a picture without an idea where the lens was pointed. It would turn out to be a good picture because it captured the siblings laughing heartedly but at the time Dana thought the idea of taking a picture of your own face was silly.

“Dana, honey,” Maggie called as she exited from the back door to the kitchen and onto the deck.

Dana was lounging in the deep wicker armchair with thick cushions and contemplating another glass of wine. She pushed on the arms to help her stand up in expectation she was needed in the kitchen. “Yeah, Mmom?”

When she stood up it wasn’t who she was expecting to be waiting for her. Especially there looking devilishly handsome and a little lost.

“Mulder?” she called to the man at the door.

Maggie handed him a plate of fruit and cheese and pushed him toward Scully. “Give her that. She hasn’t eaten much today.”

Mulder looked down at the plate in his hands and walked over to where she was standing. She watched as he took in her appearance and she realized to him, this was probably pretty strange. Mulder didn’t see much of casual-family-time-Scully. He saw work-Scully and wake-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-Scully.

Today she was dressed in a long flowing skirt and scoop neck sweater. She had on more blush than at the office and her hair was less structured. He smiled when his eyes reached her face but she felt like he had just seen everything underneath.

He had but that was on their first case together. She told herself that was two years year ago and since her body had changed over the time, he didn’t know how things looked now. That’s what she told herself and she would continue to repeat that notion until she felt less embarrassed over the exposure.

“Mulder?” Dana repeated as he handed her the plate.

“You look, uh, nice?” he said as though it was a question.

“What are you doing here?” she asked in a half whisper and looked around to see Bill scowling at them from across the yard.

Before her partner could answer, Dana took the plate from him and set it on the railing before pulling on his leather jacket sleeve toward the stairs. She walked him around to the side of the house where the lilac bushes were fragrant and offered some privacy.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Mulder shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged as though his own appearance at her mother’s house was a surprise to him too. “I had something I needed you to look over.”

She jutted her chin forward and tilted her head slightly as though the angle might help her hear him better. “And? What is it?”

“Hey Agent Mulder with the FBI,” Charlie announced himself and held up Melissa’s camera. “I need a picture.”

“Charlie, don’t,” Dana said in a warning she usually used for when Mulder was being a slight pest.

“Come on, one together,” Charlie encouraged.

Mulder put his arm around Dana’s shoulders and squeezed her a little. “Come on, Scully. Smile.”

The camera lens closed the aperature to indicate the picture had been taken and Mulder held his hand out. He turned the camera to Scully and she crossed her arms in front of her.

“Mulder, don’t,” she said in the same tone.

“Smile, Scully,” he said as though taking her picture was an every day occurrence. “Think of little green men.”

That got a reluctant smile from her and Mulder pressed the button to take the photo. He handed the camera back to Charlie as though it was no big deal.

“One for the mantles,” Mulder quipped.

Charlie looked at Mulder with slight awe. “You know, that’s probably the best picture anyone will ever get of Dana. She hates having her picture taken.”

Mulder looked over to his partner and said in a low voice, “I know how she feels.”

The tone in his voice and the way he was looking at her did something to her and she immediately rebuked the thought. He was here for work.

“Charlie, do you mind? Mulder has something work-related he came here for.”

Charlie held his hands up defensively. “No problem. Nice to meet you, Mulder. Stay for supper?”

"Uh, maybe?" Mulder replied and looked over to his partner. "He’s nice.”

“He’s more trouble than Melissa but he has a law degree so somehow my dad forgives it,” Scully said and quickly admonished that thought. “He forgave that.”

“I wanted to talk to you about this case that came in,” Mulder said quietly. “But you’re having a family dinner…”

“You might as well stay now that you’re here,” she invited reluctantly. “My mom will be… disappointed if you leave.”

“Is there biscuits and gravy?” he asked hopefully.

Scully nodded. “I made them myself.”

“Now look who is unfolding like a flower,” he teased and they both laughed.


	8. You Think You Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation between Jerse and Mulder, Never Again

Mulder made his way through the halls of the Philidelphia hospital, ready to snap but knowing that showing any kind of emotion before he entered the room would be a mistake. He was angry at her but he was more angry at this man who took a night with Dana Scully and turned it into an X-File.

He didn’t recognize the jealousy as being abnormal because the possession he felt over Scully and her as a person felt normal to him. He had been living in that feeling of owning her as another person when he recognized she felt that ownership over him. They called each other a friend but they looked at each other with more than just a hint of sexual curiosity. Mulder assumed she wasn’t interested in dating and he left his XXX tapes lying around the office to remind her he was. Their partnership was just more than a little fucked up at this point.

“Can I see him?” Mulder asked the guard as he flashed his badge.

Monitors beeped inside the sterile room and there was a nurse reapplying a bandage to repair the skin Ed Jerse had burned off in an attempt to kill the voice inside his head. This was not the most unusual interview Mulder would conduct that day because he also had to ask Scully questions too. The only way he could come down here to pick her up was to insist to Skinner this was an X-File.

“Ed Jerse,” Mulder greeted. “I’m Special Agent Fox Mulder with the FBI. I’m here to ask you a few questions.”

Ed was laying on his back for his blood pressure and there was a cut on his lip from where Scully had punched him. Good.

“Is this about Dana?” Jerse asked.

Mulder tensed at the usage of her first name. It felt wrong to call her anything but Scully but Mulder recognized that Scully had showed him a side he only fantasized about on his leather couch with a wad of tissue at the ready.

“I just have a few questions,” he told him and took out his notepad to sit casually in front of him.

If he was casual he wasn’t threatened and perhaps Jerse would reveal everything. Mulder was right. Jerse told him everything. The divorce, the voice in his head who hated every woman who looked his way, asking for a cover up of the tattoo and meeting Dana. She told him she was a doctor and visiting an aunt in the neighbourhood. So Ed took her to a crappy bar instead of a nice restaurant at her request and they drank four a piece.

Dana Scully went out with a strange man in a different city to a crummy bar where she drank four drinks and then was going to drive back her hotel. The whole thing sounded too out of character but the things Ed told her she talked about wasn’t out of character. The father figures, the desire to please men in her life and the rebellious streak in her. Then he told Mulder all about the night they spent in his apartment. Right down to her wearing one of Jerse’s shirts to bed and waking up the next morning before her to get coffee.

“She’s a wonderful woman and I would have never done any of these things if it wasn’t for-” Jerse gestured to the bandaged arm. “Betty hates every woman. I would never harm a woman in my life. I feel horrible.”

“Thank you for your time, Mr Jerse,” Mulder replied as he folded the cover of his notebook over the pages he had taken his notes on.

“She thinks of you like that, you know,” Jerse said as Mulder turned his back.

“I beg your pardon?” Mulder looked at the man who was now wearing a smug smile.

“You,” Jerse said. “You’re the father figure she was mentioning. At first I thought it was your boss but I think you’re the reason she was sent to Philly and I think you’re the reason she’s been feeling so listless.”

Jerse looked around the bed as though he was looking for a cigarette and then shook his head at the realization he couldn’t smoke.

“I know Dana,” Jerse continued. “She’s not who you think she is.”

“You think because you saw her naked you know her?” Mulder asked honestly. “You know piece of who she is. She took her clothes off for you. You don’t know about her dreams or what breaks her heart. What does she cry about? What is she passionate about? Tell me about her childhood besides the story she told you about her dad. You don’t know what makes her tick just because you’ve touched places of her body.”

“You should tell her you’re in love with her,” Jerse replied after a solid beat.

The nurse in the room cleared her throat.

“We’ll be in contact with you when it comes time for sentencing but I don’t think the judge will give you leniency after nearly killing a federal agent,” Mulder quipped.

Mulder couldn’t believe that Jerse could see it. He had to act like an asshole about a desk and how he felt about her. How was he supposed to act now that that his love for Scully was so obvious a man who knew Scully a day could see it but she can’t.


	9. Season 5, UST Detour

“Par-tay,” he said as he turned around to watch her set the tray down.

“I must remind you, however, this goes against bureau policy of male and female agents consorting in the same motel room while on assignment,” she said as she poured them each a glass of wine.

“Try any of that Tailhook crap on me, Scully, I’ll kick your ass,” Mulder teased and she rolled her eyes. It was a bad joke and he knew it but then again, he got away with those with her. “Pop quiz, what animal will attack the strongest leaving the weakest to escape? The answer is none. Not one of the over four thousand species native to North America will attack the strongest when the weak is vulnerable.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” she asked as she walked around the bed to hand him a glass.

“It makes me think that what we’re dealing with is no ordinary predator,” he explained.

“I thought this was just a ploy to get out of the conference,” she remarked.

“I think that what we stumbled upon here is something more than local authorities realize. The scenario described by that boy sounds to me like a primitive culling technique,” he insisted from his desk chair.

“Mulder, we’re in Florida. The closest thing to primitive down here is living in a beachfront retirement condo,” she said. “You’re not going to let this up, are you?”

He shrugged.

“Do you want to go check it out?”

Mulder looked at the plate of cheese and wine Scully had gone to the trouble of putting together. “Maybe in the morning?”

“Why don’t you call the sheriff’s office and have them do a walk by?” Scully suggested as she sat down on Mulder’s bed.

“Yeah…” he nodded slowly.

Mulder sat down on the bed next to her and tried not to notice that the animals on screen were now rabidly humping. He cleared his throat. 

“Nice,” she commented and picked up the remote. “Mind if I change the channel?”

Mulder made a gesture as to be his guest and took a sip of the cheap motel wine. He looked at her flushed cheeks from the alcohol and wondered if she had one of these bottles before coming over to him. He might have assumed she would have since Scully rarely came to him for company.

“Look at the TV, Mulder,” Scully instructed with a smile on her lips. 

Mulder studied her sitting next to him and wondered if maybe she had really come there for a friendly evening and not the thing his pornographic mind had jumped to. 

“Mulder,” she replied again and slowly looked up his frame and into his eyes. 

He saw something else there. Something desiring. Something lustful and curious. Her wonder towards the world was usually directed at a piece of evidence or a phenomenon she was trying to explain. There was never the underlying desire to taste or touch. 

“How are you feeling?” Mulder asked. He meant in general and expected the standard ‘I’m fine’ response.

“Like I’m out of wine,” she replied with a pout. 

Mulder finished his glass off. “I could get us more provisions?”

Scully scooted down on the bed. “Sure. Maybe gin this time?”

Drinks with Scully wasn’t a good idea if she was to remain off limits. He found himself longing to touch her. Longing to grab at her flesh and feel the weight she had gained back from her cancer. 

“Maybe I’ll go by the sheriff’s office on my way by the liquor store,” he said quickly. 

He grabbed his jacked with his wallet and closed the door behind him.


	10. Season 5, Post Detour

They were sitting in a rental car with two days of coffee cups littering the floor of the back seat and both of them needed to have a shower. Like a deep, harsh scrubbing that only the US army or the CDC could provide. Not the weak water pressure from their hotel that was fourteen minutes away that offered a lumpy mattress and crummy sheets. It sounded like heaven to Scully right now.

Instead, she was tired, overworked and doing a questionnaire with Mulder answering questions she’d rather not.

“Okay, Mulder, your turn,” Scully prompted.

“Uh, ….When talking to people does my partner pay attention to my body language?” Mulder repeated the question. They were given a list of questions they needed to work through since they skipped the communications conference. “Why are we doing this?”

“Because you made us skip the conference to look for red eyed people eater moth men,” Scully retorted using the phrase Mulder used in his rough draft of his report. “So, Mulder, we have to do these questions and submit our report after we finish doing this assignment because we’re being punished.”

“Communicating is a punishment?” Mulder asked her.

He knew the answer. Talking about her feelings would be next on her list of things she would rather not do next to clean the men’s locker room at the FBI gym and eat only diner food for the next thirty years. She really did hate the restaurants he picked.

Scully raised her eyebrow and shook her head.

“Okay, I think you’re aware of my body language like facial expressions, hand movements?” he said more as a question than a statement.

Scully took a sip of her water and and tried not to choke on it as a scoff came out of her.

“What?”

Scully cleared her throat and her cheeks flushed a little.

“What?” Mulder turned to her and she could see him studying her expression.

“Mulder, I’m aware of you physically,” she stated flatly. “You make your presence very known to my personal bubble.”

Scully made a gesture with her hands that insinuated where her bubble was. He often stepped right inside it before putting a possessive hand on her lower back.

“Oh really?” he leaned his back against the door of the car and took a sip of his coffee.

“I see the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice,” she said softly.

It was Mulder’s turn to flush. “Uh, how’s that?”

“A little regretful, maybe,” she said and his jaw dropped open. “A little interested. A little curious. A little possessive and slightly suggestive.”

Mulder smiled. “I’m only regretful you got mixed up in this.”

“Which I said I would do all over again,” she told him.

“Right and yes, Scully you’re very interesting,” he confirmed. “You know… I’m sure I might be guilty of all those expressions.”

Scully marked down Mulder’s response in her notebook. “You’re a close proximity person and I’ve gotten used to that. I don’t take it personally.”

He shook his head. “You should.”


	11. Season 5 UST

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Season 5, tailing a suspect and a moment of want

She was running through a long hallway in heels with her jacket blowing behind her. Her heart was pumping through her veins and she was ready to get this asshole down to the ground when he ducked into an apartment off to the right. She had her gun drawn, her flashlight illuminating the way and she would shoot if provoked.

“FBI!” she called out in a voice that wasn’t hers. It was her FBI Agent Scully is in charge voice. It was the voice she used when entering buildings or darkened rooms to announce her presence and she would use her weapon. “James Beaumont come out with your hands up!”

James Beaumont was a philanderer, a rapist and a womanizer but he wasn’t their suspect. He was their contact to get to their suspect.

She heard a rustle to the left and she tread lightly to find the noise. Rats. Actual rats. God, this job sometimes….

She searched the room, slowly and carefully but somehow he was gone. He came into this room, where did he go?

She pulled out her phone and dialed her partner’s number. He answered on the first ring. “He’s on the fire escape!”

Oh fuck this guy.

So that was how she got on the fire escape but how he got off of it, bypassed Mulder and the agent working with them and escape the patrol cars in the area looking for James Beaumont’s likeness was beyond her comprehension. What came next was worse. When she couldn’t get the ladder from the fire escape to go all the way to the bottom, Mulder suggested she jump. Into his arms.

So as she stood on the metal deck with her breath panting out into the cold night air and wondered what her life had become, she contemplated if she didn’t jump into his arms if she would break any bones. Possibly not.

Sprain an ankle or two, probably.

Her mind went through the possibilities of her life from that point on, needing to be carried around my Mulder as some kind of damsel in distress and her mind immediately said Not A Chance!

The thought of him carrying him around was not abhorred to her. She like him, she liked being around him. He was easy on the eyes, he made her laugh and she found his natural scent to be more alluring than the cologne he wore but that really hit her hard.

Why would she say no to being catered to by Mulder? Too close for comfort. Her body was attracted to his body, her mind liked his mind but he was a first rate doofus when it came to women. Especially when it came to her.

He would sooner leave her wobbling on crutches than have an emotional connection that lasted longer than thirty seconds or make a wise crack joke latent with sexual innuendo. As much as she liked the guy he certainly wasn’t emotionally capable of dealing with romance.

“Come on Scully, take the ladder!” Mulder called up to her.

She pushed on the mechanism again to make the ladder move and from her approximation it fell about four feet short of where she needed it to. Great.

“It’s not going to get all the way down. I can’t jump from that high,” she called back. This was a waste of time she should go back into the building.

She turned back to the window and it was now locked behind her. Oh fuck this guy one hundred times with something painful.

Mulder shook his head from where he stood and held his arms up. “I’ll catch you! It will be romantic as hell. We can tell the kids at the FBI lab all about it!”

Scully looked down at his smug expression and felt her hormones cool. Fine, he could catch her, she could topple him over and he could sprain something.

She maneuvered herself to the ladder and it shifted slightly. She made a noise but tried to bite back her fear. She looked down and Mulder stood directly underneath as his fingers waving to coax her down.

“Come on,” he encouraged.

She made it down the ladder so her feet were on the bottom rung and her hands were two above that so she was crouching. “Please don’t drop me.”

Her left foot left the ladder and then her right so she was hanging. Mulder’s finger tips brushed her shoes and she knew he was there.

“I’m going to let go now!” she said but her hands didn’t move.

“I’ve got you, Scully,” he replied. “Come on!”

She closed her eyes and her grip let go. Suddenly there were arms surrounding her and she felt a thud as she hit Mulder’s chest. He didn’t waver. He caught her around her legs and back just as though this was rehearsed in some kind of bad movie.

When she opened her eyes he was smiling at her.

“Light as a feather.”

“And just last week you were commenting on my waistline,” she grumbled as she tried to get out of his grasp.

Mulder held onto her. “I mean that you looked like you were filling out your pants in a nice way, honest.”

Scully’s cheeks flushed and she saw the look on his face he usually harboured for big breasted women on his tapes. “Oh.”

“Yeah, you look good with meat on your bones Scully,” he said. “I mean you could look good any size but…”

“Mulder,” she stopped him.

He cleared his throat and he set her down. She took her hands off his chest and took a calming breath. If he was going to kiss her this might be the least appropriate moment but he was staring at her mouth like he wanted to climb inside. She tried not to think of what she could do with that mouth.

“Agents!”

Scully stepped back from Mulder and looked around him. Their agent contact at the Dallas office was running toward them.

“We caught him!”

Back to work.


	12. Season 5, Post The Red and the Black

Mulder placed three twenties on the table under their dinner bill and exited the doors of the Capitol Grille to catch up with his partner. She left him inside to pay while she took a phone call from her mother. Maggie’s phone calls had become more frequent since Scully’s last trip to Skyland Mountain. He didn’t blame the worry Maggie had developed and found himself calling at night to ensure Scully was home too.

The streets were slick from a recent rain that pushed their dinner from a quick bite to a long chat. Mulder was happy to wait out the precipitation to lessen for the walk back to work because it meant he had more off-duty Scully time.

When he didn’t see Scully at first his mind went to the worst possible scenario until he spotted her on her backside with a pained expression and staring angrily at her foot. The foot traffic along Pennsylvania was minimal but her embarrassment at her own clumsiness was obvious.

“What happened?” he asked as he crouched down to help her up.

“Wet cement, these damn heels and I think that glass of wine was a mistake,” she muttered and allowed Mulder to help her to her feet with one hand under her underarm and the other hand holding her elbow. It always shocked Mulder when he felt the weight of her in his hands at how light she was because in his life she had such a large presence. Scully winced as she tried to put weight on her right foot. “I think I twisted my ankle.”

“Twisted, sprained or strained Doctor?” he teased in an attempt to get her to smile.

It almost worked but she winced again. “Sprained.”

Mulder assessed their surroundings and knew it was only six minutes by foot to the J Edgar Hoover building parkade. Ten if he was carrying something bigger than a lunch pail like Scully.

“Okay.”

His declaration was just that and he scooped her up into a cradle carry with his arm under her knees and back.

“Mulder!” she cried out as she clutched his jacket.

“Do you want to walk?” he asked as her arm slid around his shoulders.

He watched her eyes assess her own injured foot and she shook her head slightly.

“Didn’t think so,” he said. “I’ll get you to my car-”

“My car. Your car is disgusting,” she interrupted.

“I’ll get you to your car,” he continued. “I’ll drive you to the ER to get it X-Rayed and if you need me to I can tuck you into bed.”

“How many beers did you have, Mulder?” Scully asked as he began to walk toward their office building.

“Just the one,” he replied.

“That’s what I thought,” she replied.

He could feel her breath on his neck and the scent of her wine on her lips. He could turn his face to kiss her so easily. Maybe drinking a beer with dinner so late that night wasn’t a good idea for him either. He wasn’t drunk but his mind felt foggy but that could be from skipping lunch and the close proximity.

“If it’s sprained I’ll just need to ice it,” Scully deduced. There was a waver in her voice as though she was trying to keep herself calm also. “Rest it, ice it, compression and elevate it.”

“I’ll remember that later when you’re telling me you’re fine getting around on one foot,” he said knowing full well she was a bad patient.

“They could give me crutches,” she mused. She cleared her throat. “Am I too heavy?”

Mulder smiled at her and squeezed her thigh and side. “You’re fine.”

“That’s usually my line,” she mumbled and he caught a flush on her cheeks.

This wouldn’t be so difficult if he hadn’t watched her hypnosis recently and he heard her desperation and frustration as she recalled the night place. The sound of her voice calling to God had sunk deep down into his mind and bubbled up when he didn’t want it to as he tried to sleep. The longing for her to say Oh God underneath him as he pushed into her. He was a twisted sorry son of a bitch.

  
“Mulder?” she prompted.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

He felt some guilt for objectifying her in such a way. However with the little glimpses he had gotten to her naked body over the last five years and almost losing her recently to cancer, he knew he couldn’t help it. He wanted her and he was running out of reasons not to make a move.


	13. Season 5, Post The Red and The Black Part 2

Mulder moved the clipboard onto the armrest of the chair as he filled out the necessary forms for Scully to be admitted to the George Washington University Hospital emergency room. Reluctantly but upon his insistence, she placed her wounded foot in Mulder’s lap with a gel-ice pack balancing across the swollen joint.

Mulder looked up from the form to the couple sitting across from them who were both holding gauze bandaged fingers elevated. He was trying to determine if they worked together since they were both in a similar uniform but the man was tapping his fingers on his companion’s knees. Maybe they had a similar relationship to his and Scully’s where personal space stopped being an issue.

“Do you want me to write down your mom as your In Case of Emergency person?” Mulder asked as he patted knee reassuringly.

“No, I think it will just worry her to find out I’m back here,” Scully explained. “Just put you.”

Mulder tried not to react too visibly at the monumental moment they were having. He always listed her while forty per cent of the time she listed him. He pushed his lower lip out and wrote down his name and phone number.

“Relationship to patient?” Mulder read from the form.

Scully’s tongue darted out to wet her lower lip and she glanced up to him. “Friend?”

Mulder nodded. Co-worker was too detached for them at this point and they weren’t technically on the clock when she fell. They were spending their off hours together at his request. He did that a lot more since her remission and she didn’t seem to mind it. Sometimes she even anticipated his pop-ins to her home on the weekends by cooking for two before he showed up with beer and a case he ‘wanted to look at’ but really just needed any excuse to see her.

Scully looked across the bank of chairs to the young couple too and Mulder watched as the blonde man gave her a wink. She narrowed her eyes and looked down at her hand before taking the clipboard from Mulder.

“Raymond and Oliva?” a nurse called and the couple stood up in unison. “We can take you in Triage now.”

“See you later, Red,” Raymon quipped at Scully before following his ambivalent companion out of the ER.

“Jeez,” Mulder noted.

“I don’t understand your gender,” Scully said with a shake of her head and began to look over the form Mulder had filled out for her.

“I might admit that he was being pretty forward there but it’s not like he’s the only man who ever made a pass at you,” Mulder replied quietly. “You’re beautiful and I’m not the only one who thinks that.”

“You think that?” Scully asked as she turned to watch him. He dug a handful of seeds out from his pocket and she put her hand on his before he could pop a seed into his mouth to stall the conversation. She knew all his ticks. “Mulder?”

He turned to look at her and he hoped he wasn’t making the same puppy face that Eddie Van Blundht had tried on her. “Yes, Scully.”

She tucked her chin towards her as she paused to think of the weight of such an honest statement. “Oh.”

Her cheeks had a pink hue again and he could tell she was obviously uncomfortable with such honesty.

“You’re smart as hell and you’re a wonderful human being Scully,” Mulder continued. “But you’re not at all bad to look at so I don’t know why you find my opinion to be so surprising.”

“I wasn’t sure you saw real people like myself as anything but ones and zeros,” Scully commented.

This comment was a continuation on a conversation she and Mulder had when they met Esther Narin about the human existence being reduced to binary codes. She believed Mulder appreciated the less tangible things such as glossy magazine women and the actresses on his tapes while he ignored the physical beings of the people in his life. Mulder had felt hurt by that statement but he realized she was telling him she didn’t think he _saw_ her.

“I see a lot about you,” Mulder admitted as he placed his hand on her knee.

“Dana Scully?” a nurse called and an orderly stood with a wheelchair ready to take her to radiology. “Let’s get you X-rayed!”

“Oh good they sent a perky one,” Mulder quipped. “I know how much you love perky nurses.”

Scully chuffed a laugh as he helped her into the wheelchair.

“I heard that,” the nurse scolded with a false smile. “Just for that you can wait here until she’s finished.”

Mulder held his hands up in his defense and popped a seed into his mouth. “See you in a few.”

Her eyes met his and he wondered if they were promising to continue this conversation later. He hoped they would with more forthcoming answers from her.


	14. Season 5, Post The Red and the Black Part 3

It took three hours and a second trip to radiology to deduce that Scully had a sprained ankle with no broken metatarsals. The first X-ray, while perfectly sufficient for Scully to make a diagnosis, was questionable to her doctor.

Mulder sat up from his slouched position in the waiting area and took in the sight of Scully’s wrapped foot. He breathed a sigh of relief there was no cast but a tensor bandage binding her foot and a set of crutches between her legs for future use.

“You get to keep the foot!” he noted and she rolled her eyes. “So you get some sticks to hobble around on and maybe you need me to give you a sponge bath later. No big deal.”

“Your husband is a funny guy,” the perky nurse from earlier noted.

“Oh he’s-”

“She thinks I’m hilarious,” Mulder interrupted. He saw her shooting daggers at his face but he ignored her. “All set, honeybunch?”

“Sure thing, poopyhead,” Scully muttered and the nurse laughed again.

Scully handed Mulder a prescription for a mild pain reliever and he tucked it into his pocket before taking over the wheelchair handles from the nurse.

They had the logistics of transportation and what do to once they got Scully home. She would attempt to shoo him off, he would end up doing more than she asked and they would need to fumble through getting her ready for bed and the awkward moment when he would actually tuck her into bed.

“What’s that?” Mulder asked as Scully tucked something small into her black suit jacket pocket as they approached her car.

“My nylons,” she mumbled.

He nodded with a realization now there was one less layer of clothing between them. He then thought about how they went about removing her nylons then redressing her. Him not being present during the exam was probably a good thing.

He returned the wheelchair to the lobby of the ER, moved Scully’s crutches in the trunk of her car and remembered the suit he had hanging in her front closet.

“Since I have a suit and tie at your place and considering the late hour, you won’t mind if I bunk at your place do you, Scully?”

“I was hoping you might since getting around with crutches isn’t really my strong suit,” she admitted. “And I can’t drive with my foot like this.”

She was looking out the window and avoiding eye contact with him but he could see the flush on her cheeks. Not the residue from her burns from being on the bridge at Skyland Mountain. This was an embarrassment or other emotion that flooded with her face with a redness.

The important thing to remember for Mulder as they made their way to Georgetown was that Dana Scully was not good at asking for help but she also hated to be late for work. Mulder had overheard her discuss her rebellious past and knew the streak in her was still present but tardiness wasn’t really something the kids raised under William Scully Sr were able to master.

“Do I swing by the twenty four hour pharmacy now or on our way to work in the morning?” Mulder asked as he pulled the prescription from his pocket.

Scully covered her mouth with the back of her hand as she yawned. “Excuse me. They gave me something at the hospital so I should be okay until tomorrow morning.”

Mulder nodded in agreement and checked his watch. It was past midnight and they had a eight a.m. meeting with Skinner they really couldn’t afford to be late for.

He wished they could play hookie until next week with more fun activities that involved little clothing and a discovery of the skin underneath the sharp suits and skeptical stares she donned each morning. This was why the late hour was dangerous for him. He thought about more untoward things after the sun went down when she began to look sleepy and pliant.

His personal changes in his views had taken such a turn over the last few months. From believing so passionately in aliens, to a complete disregard for their existence to a reaffirmation of faith in extraterrestrial life as Scully gripped his fingers and called to God on a couch during a hypnotherapy session, he found a middle ground. Instead of an outside source of danger he saw the threat to human existence as one plotted and planned by elected officials, military offices and faceless shape-shifting beings that could take over a body with a black oil. It all sounded so ludicrous no wonder no one believed him.

When he looked over to Scully, asleep against head rest with her breath fogging up the glass, he wondered why she did.

He parked in her spot and shut off the car. There was an urge to brush an errant strand from her face the way he had at the hospital a few weeks ago. Except she didn’t wake up when he opened the door and shook her shoulder. She hummed and rubbed her face against his hand like a damn cat.

If she wanted to be less attractive to him in her waking hours she could start with being less adorable when she slept.

 _Stop thinking like one of your video tapes_ , Mulder chided himself.

He had to be honest with himself. His fantasies stopped being like a video tape reenactment and more closely to one of the books Scully pretended she didn't read with bad romance tropes and intent for more. He wanted the more but he wanted the romance too. He wanted it all if he was being completely truthful he just had no idea how to go about it.

 _Maybe kiss her, you idiot. When she's conscious and wants to kiss you back._ Mulder shook his head. _When she gives you the green light like a sleeping bag reference or dances with you at a Cher concert? You idiot!_

His internal thought process had the same patience for him as his father; very little and a lot of disappointment with his lack of follow through.

She stayed asleep as he got her into her apartment with little fuss. She sighed as he laid her on the bed. Mulder stood over her with her jacket and shoes removed, her crutches propped against the foot-board and a hand thoughtfully to his chin. He grabbed a spare toothbrush from her medicine cabinet and took a blanket from the cupboard for his night on the couch.


	15. Season 6

Mulder moved another box over to the wall of the small storage room they had ducked inside when they heard footsteps approaching inside General Prior’s office. He climbed onto the tower of small boxes and listened in to the vent. 

“What are you doing?” Scully whispered. 

Mulder held his finger to his lips and pointed into the vent as he tried to listen to the conversation going on in the office. It sounded as though the general was on a long conference call. She stood with her arms folded in front of her and sat down on a box of paper. 

After a few moments Mulder climbed down and moved a box off his pile to have a seat across from her. It was cramped in the closet and his knees bumped into hers but she refused to move. With a few more awkward maneuvers by Mulder on his part, he was able to sit comfortably without encroaching too far into Scully’s personal space.

“Looks like we’re going to be here a while,” he said as he took out a handful of seeds. 

He must have those in every pocket of every pair of pants he owned. For some reason that really bothered her.

“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” she grumbled. 

“What’s that?” Mulder whispered and leaned into her.

“I can’t believe you woke me up at four o’clock in the morning on a Saturday, talked me into sneaking onto an Army base to investigate a General we have a meeting with on Monday that we lied to Kersh about and of all things, I’m locked in a closet with you,” she whispered angrily. “I can’t believe my life sometimes.”

Mulder sat back against the wall. “Oh.”

There was a beat of silence and Mulder tapped the back of his head against the wall. If this had happened at any other time in their partnership it might not be so frustrating to be trapped in a closet with one another. However Mulder recently told Scully he loved her, she rolled her eyes at the notion and brushed him off. What did he expect? Just weeks ago he was telling her Diana was someone he trusted implicitly and yet Scully could only discover bits and pieces of information about her. If she was transparent in her actions, there should be nothing but glowing recommendations. 

Deep down it was about something else. It was about an almost kiss and the follow up conversation that never happened. It was about being stuck on bad assignments with curious eyes watching them day in and day out. It was about working for a man who wanted nothing more than to make an example out of them and tightened the leash on their actions. 

“We’re off the X-Files and you know that doing this isn’t going to get us back on there so what could you have possibly hoped to accomplish?” she asked. 

Her voice was softer but possibly because getting angrier with Mulder wouldn’t solve anything. It never did. He was the puppy that didn’t learn not to chew her shoes. The problem was with them is that she kept rewarding this behaviour by going with him. 

Mulder moved his jean clad legs so they were brushing against hers. Scully smoothed the material of her black pants out and maneuvered her legs to the side. He moved his legs and brushed his knee obviously against hers. 

“Mulder,” she warned in the tone that said more than just his name. 

His long arm reached out to place a warm hand on her knee. “Scully.”

She narrowed her eyes at him as she tried to fight off a flush rising in her cheeks. “This isn’t the time.”

His eyes studied her mouth and the pink tongue that wet her lips. She could see his pupils dilate and she swallowed. 

“Not here,” she whispered.

His face inched closer to hers as her breath caught in her throat.

“If not now, Scully, when?” he asked before he pressed his lips to hers. 

Their timing was terrible.


	16. Season 6, Agua Mala

“Did you honestly think you were going to take down George while a sea monster was trying to come through the roof?” Mulder asked as they made their way through the tattered streets from Aurthur Dales’ mobile home. 

“I had to try,” she muttered as she shifted in her seat. “Just like I have to try to get us home tonight.”

“We’re not going to get back without Kersh finding out we were down here,” Mulder replied knowingly. “There’s not much of a career to salvage at this point.”

“Wanna bet?” she muttered. Her phone rang and she was confused at the caller ID. “Scully?”

“Agent.” a voice came through.

“Sir,” Scully turned to look up at Mulder and his mouth widened in a wince. “Uh, what’s going on?”

“You’re in trouble…” Mulder whispered and Scully reached across the car to push on his arm. “Hey! I’m injured!”

“Ssssshhh!” she said shrilly and Mulder covered his ear. “Sorry sir, what’s up?”

“Agent Scully where are you?” A.D. Skinner asked. His tone of voice told her he knew exactly where she was.

“We just came down to Florida-”

“During a hurricane,” Skinner interrupted. She could hear him sigh in utter disappointment.

“Mulder got a call-”

“I know, from Arthur Dales,” Skinner cut her off again. 

Scully shifted in her seat. “Right.”

Mulder pulled onto the highway and made his way toward their motel. “We’re in trouble. I can smell it.”

“I know Agent Mulder has a penchant for going off the deep end and you were probably a life saving instrument to him but you have to understand that this unsanctioned trip has put you in hot water,” Skinner said. 

She could see him tugging on the collar of his white shirt as he toyed with a pen in the other hand with the phone pressed between his ear and shoulder. His usual reprimand involved fidgeting out of discomfort for being put in the position of having to scold her. He probably did better with it over the phone when he couldn’t see her discomfort and disapproval as he scolded her. Scully took her licks in stride but it didn’t make her accept the injustice of what they saw. 

“I am working to keep you back on the X-Files,” Skinner said through what sounded like clenched teeth. “You keep this up and you’ll end up under someone who finds Mulder a lot less charming than Kersh does.”

“What can we do?” Scully asked and she licked her upper lip. She tried not to notice Mulder shifting around in his seat as they pulled into their motel parking lot.

“I need you to log onto the employee database to submit a request for time off for me to approve of it before Kersh realizes you’re not coming in today,” Skinner instructed. “If all goes well, we can still you Monday for the departmental overview.”

Friday, today, was supposed to be their last day in the bull pen under Kersh and it dawned on her suddenly this was Mulder’s way of giving one last middle finger to that demotion from the X-Files and to their boss. 

“We can do this,” Scully promised.

“And Agent?” Skinner said. “Don’t ever do that again.”

Scully nodded and allowed Skinner to hang up on her. 

“So, did he chew you a new one?” Mulder asked as he looked at his wounds in the rear view mirror. “Want me to check?”

Scully pushed on his arm as he leered toward her. “No.”

Mulder leaned against the door of the car and smiled at her. He looked like a damned model with his hair spiking up and a look of self satisfaction. “Are you sure? Even if we’re getting a holiday?”

Scully took in Mulder’s expectant face but decided he was definitely joking. “I want a shower and a hot meal. Only one of these I want your company for.”

Mulder shook his head. “That decontamination shower was enough for your for 1999?”

Her cheeks flushed and she chuffed out a laugh. “Yeah, something like that.”


	17. Season 6, Post Triangle

They weren’t a couple who normally fought like this but she hadn’t really considered them a couple. Not really. They had kissed a few times, he held her hand on occasion and he liked to propose marriage whenever it suited him. But they were professional partners with the FBI.

If this was any other man in her life she might ask what was going on but then he had to get himself shipwrecked in the Bermuda Triangle and tell her he loved her when he woke up.

Skinner was two feet away. The Lone Gunmen were outside the door. He wasn’t serious. She brushed it off.

Imagine her surprise when she drove him home from the hospital and he took her hand in his. “I meant what I said, Scully.”

Scully’s tongue did its nervous tick of running along her upper lip and she shifted in her seat. If they ever played strip poker she would be naked in three hands. He knew all her tells.

“You love me too,” he said as he rubbed the back of her hand.

“Did they give you more painkillers?” Scully asked as she tried to pull her hand away. He released it only to place one large palm on her knee. She took his hand again because it was less distracting.

Kersh had berated her on the phone about the possibilities of getting back to the basement dwindling away at every idiotic maneuver Mulder made. She didn’t hate many people but her boss was certainly campaigning for a spot on that list. She was trying to save their jobs and he was getting romantic.

“Go on, tell me,” he challenged. “Tell me you don’t love me.”

Scully sighed as they pulled onto his street. “Fine. I love you too.”

“ _Not_ like a brother,” he added.

“ _Mulder_ ,” she protested. That Mulder meant stop.

“ _Scully_ ,” he coaxed. That Scully meant admit it.

Sometimes it was more annoying than anything else to be able to communicate with someone by merely saying their name with different inflections. Sometimes it was helpful but sometimes…

“You have a head wound and the doctor at the hospital advised me you might not be yourself for the next two days,” she said as she parked the car. “Kersh is expecting me us back to work Thursday.”

“Not like a brother,” he repeated as he edged closer to her in the car.

He smelled like the lemon soap at the hospital and the minty toothpaste. He smelled like his laundry and the underlying scent of his skin that was soothing to her.

“Not like a brother,” she confessed as he inched closer.

His mouth took hers and he kissed her softly. Her lips parted slightly but his tongue stayed politely in his mouth. Pity.

When he pulled away he looked at his face. “I don’t look at you like a sister either.”

“You know Mulder, you certainly treat me like one sometimes,” she pointed out.

“I’ll try to remedy that when my doctor clears me for intense physical activity,” he promised. “I don’t want you to feel like anyone but-”

“Mulder maybe you shouldn’t-” she interrupted.

He kissed her again and this time his tongue left its manners at the door. Delightful. It was soft and sweet but passionate and full of promise.

“Wanna tuck me in?” he leered as his hand attempted to snake under her shirt.

Scully pushed his hand down. “You have yet to be cleared for duty. If I tuck you in you’re just going to bed.”

“Party pooper,” he grumbled.


	18. Season 6, Dreamland UST

Mulder stood in front of the full length mirror in his apartment dressed only in his undershirt, boxers and socks. His coffee sat on his desk cooling with the morning sunlight creating an orange glow in the room.

Not only was it suspect that his entire apartment was clean, that there was suddenly a waterbed in his previously packed bedroom he used for storage but there was food in his fridge that he hadn’t purchased.

He had the receipts to his credit card with a signature that didn’t quite match up. There was a bottle of champagne in the fridge that was unopened and some handcuffs secured to the bedpost.

Whoever was playing a prank on him had to learn a better joke.

Yet, he was feeling a state of deja vu as he stood in front of the closet mirror. His body looked like his body but he had a feeling of looking through someone else’s eyes and seeing someone else. Someone less attractive with a haircut he wouldn’t attempt and a wife screaming at him from the door.

The awkward dream he had that included a lounger with porn playing in the background while images of Scully danced in his head. The same angry face waking him up.

Mulder moved his body back and forth, his hips and his face. He was wiggling around and feeling silly as he reenacted something else from his dream. His arms straightened in front of him and he was about to continue this little move when the door opened and he caught red hair out of the corner of his eye.

“Mulder?”

His initial reaction was to pretend to move his limbs as though he was practicing Tai Chi.

“Morning stretches?” Scully asked as she kicked his front door closed behind her and sat at his table. She set two overpriced coffees on the table next to a bag full of what smelled like fresh pastry and crossed her legs. Her nylon clad leg peaked through her long trench coat hand he blessed every fibre of his being that the sight of her knee didn’t get him hard like it used to. “Mulder?”

“I should put pants on,” he said and made his way to his bedroom.

“A shirt and tie too,” she called after him.

He found an ash grey suit and a light blue shirt because the idea of wearing a black on white was suddenly appalling. Scully leaned her head to see him dressing and he caught her nodding before taking a sip from the paper cup.

“Kersh wants us out in Chantilly in an hour,” she called to him.

“You know what I like,” Mulder leered as he exited his bedroom carrying two ties. Royal blue with small white diamonds or grey with white stripes. Scully pointed at the less offensive tie and he put the other one down on the table next to the coffee she brought him. “Who are we looking into in Chantilly?”

“More farmers that ordered stockpiles of manure,” Scully replied.

“A stinky day,” Mulder quipped as he donned his suit jacket.

Scully stood up and fixed the area of his collar he could feel wasn’t quite right. “Better than a man in black.”

A small smile crept up his face. If there was going to be a morning to want to kiss Dana Scully, this could be it.

Everything about her looked welcoming and warm. She smelled minty like her toothpaste and he could detect her perfume wafting off her wrist as she fixed his collar. She looked fresh from the shower and her suit was fitted in all the best places. He wanted to kiss her after long days at the office or on the road when she was rumpled and longed for bed. He wanted to kiss her all the time.

“Ready?” she asked.

Mulder looked down at his suit. “You tell me, boss.”

“Shameless suck up,” Scully quipped.

"You have no idea," he retorted and they laughed as they left his apartment.

Mulder would regret missing the chance to kiss her that morning when she seemed more open to it than other times over the last few months. His mind ran rampant with ideas of keeping her holed away and testing his waterbed while their pressed clothing wrinkled on the floor. He wanted to hear her call for God while he put 30 years of sunflower seed obsession to good use. He wanted to to see her body stretched out underneath him or lithely on top.

Instead he got more big giant piles of manure and a headache from reading in the car.


	19. Season 6, Tithonus

Mulder arrived at the hospital in NYC with his heart pounding in his chest and enough adrenaline to clock someone. He was going to punch the lights out from that first-name-calling motherfucker.

It was bad enough that he had to call her mother to tell her she had been shot but he couldn’t even apologize to Maggie for putting her daughter in harms way again.

He knew what floor and room to find her in but he wasn’t anticipating Peyton Ritter to be standing at the end of her bed and explaining his deepest regrets. That sorry son of a bitch could be apologetic until he was blue in the face. Mulder was going to push for a censure or termination.

Ritter closed the door on Scully’s hospital room and Mulder sized him up.

“You’re a lucky man.” It wasn’t a statement. It was a warning.

Ritter barely nodded and left. He probably had his own OPR appointment to get to since shooting a fellow agent usually called for a review.

When Mulder entered the room they exchanged hopeful smiles. Grateful to see the other breathing. Without thinking, Mulder reached out to touch her hand and she allowed their thumbs to play at one another.

His heart was beating faster for other reasons now.

“Coroner’s report came back on Fellig,” Mulder stated as she pushed her thumbnail into the tip of his thumb and sighed. “Says he died of a single gun shot wound. That’s all it said.”

She had no response at this news. The lackluster way in which the NYPD would process a man who no one believed was older than seventy didn’t surprise her and he could see that.

Mulder sat next to her on the bed and his hand brushed against her thigh. Different from how she stood dangerously close to him after the Bermuda Triangle debacle and he admitted his love for her.

“I talked to your doctor and he said you’re doing great,” Mulder reported. Saying it out loud was more for his benefit than Scully’s. “He says you’re making the fastest recovery he’s ever seen.”

Mulder could feel himself smiling like an idiot but he couldn’t help it. He wondered if she could see the look on his face that showed he really did love her. Not like a sibling or a friend. But the kind that wants to peel the strict suits of her body regularly and make love to her on every surface he sees.

“You know Mulder, I don’t even know how I entertained the thought,” she mused. “People don’t live forever.”

“No I think he would have,” Mulder countered. “I just think that death only looks for you and once you seek it’s opposite.”

Mulder stared at her and saw the painkillers taking their toll. He wondered if she would be more honest with him then.

“Last time we were here was a little different,” he noted.

“New York City or a hospital?” Scully asked.

She covered his hand with hers and pushed her thumbnail into the pad of his again. The drugs were making her more absent-minded with her physical contact. Scully was not overly generous with her touch but her inhibitions had definitely lowered. Her guard was down.

“A hospital,” Mulder replied as he watched her fingers intertwine with his. “I told you I loved you.”

“Oh brother,’ she mumbled.

“Why do you say that?” he asked without trying to hide the hurt in his voice. “Let’s admit you almost died and that was scary.”

“It was,” she agreed and blinked at him slowly.

“What were you thinking about when Ritter shot you?” Mulder asked.

“You,” she confessed. “I had been thinking about you all day.”

This made his heart beat faster and his other hand took hers. He released it to wipe the sweat from his palm and took it again. “What were you thinking about?”

“Life is so short, Mulder,” she explained. “I’ve almost discovered that twice and I wonder what we’re all waiting for when it comes to love.”

“So why the ‘ _oh brother_ ’ then?” he asked.

He was feeling bold since she was talking so much about how she felt and he needed answers. Maybe he was being selfish but he was selfish when it came to her.

“I know you love me,” she replied.

“How do I love you?” he asked. He could feel the idiot grin coming back.

Scully turned his palm over in her lap and she drew her finger up his arm to his hand. “You think you love me like a lover would. It’s more of a brother or friend.”

“What do you base that astute assessment that I don’t honestly love you like a lover would?” Mulder challenged.

Of course they’re admitting their feelings and having more of a disagreement on what the truth could be.

“The truth, Scully?” Mulder offered and she nodded. “I think I’ve had more than partnerly and based on romantic feelings of physical desire and the like for more than a few years but maybe I realized I could do something about it when you possibly could have left the FBI and me last year.”

Her eyes searched the small pattern on his tie.

“I didn’t think you felt the same way,” he continued. “And losing you as my friend is kind of scary but I don’t want either of us to be kicking around when we’re over a hundred and forty-nine years old and thinking we should have tried our hand at something.”

“You don’t like regrets?” she asked.

“I don’t want any when it comes to you or us,” he replied.

Scully sighed. “It might not be the time for an us right now, Mulder.”

Mulder looked at her. “But you’re not saying never.”

“I’ve learned never to say never,” she answered and smiled a little. “I love you too.”

“Scully,” he breathed.

“Don’t be so surprised I’m telling you how I feel or I’ll never do it again,” she muttered.

“So is there hope?” Mulder asked. The idiot grin was definitely back.

“There’s hope,” she confirmed.

Mulder could live with hope.


	20. Season 6, Alpha

Mulder looked around Skinner’s office and sat down on the couch. People were running up and down the halls and he could hear shouting but all they could do was sit and wait. The building was on lock down. Skinner was in the outer office with Kimberly and no one was allowed to leave the area they were in until the CDC cleared it from the possible pathogen.

Anthrax was a real threat and one airborne strain was bound to have made its way into the Hoover building by now. They had just returned from the case of the bad dog, or the Wanshang Dhole. Her behaviour towards him ran hot and cold at times after discovering he and Karin’s pen-pal relationship, Scully had cooled completely. Mulder wanted to explain to her it wasn’t anything more than an exchange of ideas but she wasn’t apt to listening to him.

He would shake her silly or kiss her for all she was worth. He wanted to do both far too frequently these days.

There was a knock to the outer door and Scully crossed the office. “Hello?”

“Dr Scully,” a muffled voice came through the door.

“Yes?” she looked over to Mulder then back to the door.

“We’re just giving everyone an update,” the voice called. “We can’t clear the building until we determine the pathogen is contained. Folks will be moved to a decontamination shower shortly.”

“I’m a medical doctor and a scientist, I’m sure I can help,” Scully offered.

“We know that Dr Scully but we have to go floor by floor to clear folks and your floor is determined unsafe,” the voice explained. “We can’t open the office without possible contamination to the rest of the building.”

“Wasn’t the contamination-” Scully started.

“Okay thank you!” Mulder interrupted and started to pull Scully away from the door. “We’ll be waiting here patiently!”

“Mulder!” Scully shrugged him off. “This is ridiculous. I can help.”

“How? The CDC has 100 men scouring the building for the possible contagion and we can’t do anything,” he described and moved back over to Skinner’s couch. “Have a seat Scully. Looks like we’ll be trapped here a while.”

Scully took a few calming breaths and sat down on the couch opposite Mulder.

“Hey, there are worse ways to spend a Monday,” Mulder quipped as he tried to fill the silence. Scully looked up at the ceiling and folded her hands across her lap. “Okay, no talking. Got it.”


	21. Season 6, Set during Milagro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A secret admirer

Mulder couldn’t understand why she scoffed at the idea someone sent her a little trinket to show affection. Since he started working with her there had been some men who had shown interest and weren’t shy about their intentions.

 

Sometimes it’s was funny, sometimes it was weird but mostly, it was an occurrence he recognized more than she did. Apparently standing too close to her, holding doors and placing a guiding hand on her lower back wasn’t enough of a territorial action by Mulder to signal to the other men in the bureau she was taken… sort of. Not in the widely understood definition but she knew how he felt, right?

 

He told her he loved her earlier that year and he didn’t mean it in the “I love you like my kid sister” kind of way. He meant it in the romantic, sexual kind of way.

 

_She got that, right?_

 

He stood in the morgue waiting for her to show up and thinking of the theories of why this trinket could be from the killer. His researched proved that credible psychic surgeons believed their hands to be imbued with the holy spirit and the milagro charm was the symbol of St Margaret Mary. What he could only theorize was that the killer was taunting them, knowing that after three deaths they would feel the need to put pressure to stop him.

 

“She’s on her way right?” one of the pathologists asked Mulder.

 

“Yeah, she said she was just running an errand,” Mulder said and looked away from where they were removing the lungs from a young woman.

 

“Man I don’t know how you do it,” the second pathologist said from behind his mask.

 

“We specialize in the paranormal. Agent Scully and I don’t subscribe to Occam’s Razor and deduce the most-”

 

“No,” the second pathologist interrupted with a laugh. “Dana Scully is a tasty piece of-”

 

“Okay,” Mulder interrupted. His jaw clenched and he tightened his fists. “She’s my partner.”

 

“I asked her out a year ago,” the first pathologist offered. “An embarrassing amount of times.”

 

“Did you tell me that?” the second man asked him and wrenched on something before Mulder hear it plop with a squish into the scale.

 

“Spleen, 220 grams.”

 

“Yeah, I told you,” he said. “I even brought her flowers.”

 

“Where?” Mulder asked, suddenly interested.

 

Of the long list of men who showed an interest, he didn’t realize two of them were standing in a medical examiner’s office that they frequented once or twice a month.

 

“I brought them to the bureau, got a visitor’s pass and brought them to her desk,” he said. Mulder could tell he was blushing behind his surgical mask and goggles. “Anyway, she was in Nevada trying to save your ass from something.”

 

Mulder thought back to that awful time before they got the X-Files back. He remembered seeing flowers on her desk for a week but he thought they were from her mother or something. He checked his calendar when he got home for important Scully Dates. It wasn’t the anniversary of any deaths, graduations or recovery and he felt like an ass when he asked who they were from and she shook her head as if to say she didn’t know.

 

They were from a guy trying to pick her up.

 

Mulder wondered what the line she used when she turned down these offers.

 

_Sorry I can’t, I’m a key player in a government conspiracy to hide the existence of extra terrestrials and I might have to save my partner from some unknown location next Saturday but the flowers are beautiful._

 

Scully walked into the morgue just then and Mulder felt relieved.

 

“Hey, you weren’t wrong about being late. I was about to start slicing and dicing myself.”

 

“I’m sorry,” she said and he knew she meant it.

 

He had been waiting there a few hours. “Where were you?”


	22. Season 6, Biogenesis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's been too much speculation of Diana climbing into bed with Mulder... who was incapacitated and feeling terrible. If he was out of it, that's not consensual. 
> 
> If he was alert enough, he wouldn't be looking for his former partner for physical pleasures.

Mulder made it to his car before another blinding headache caused him to black out. It wasn’t until he felt warm hands on his face waking him up that he realized that he was back at his apartment. He was in the passenger seat of his sedan and a blurry face was coming into focus.

“Fox,” he heard the voice.

It wasn’t Samantha. This wasn’t a flashback to his childhood.

“Fox,” the voice repeated and he blinked a few times with his hand held up to shield the sun from glaring into his eyes.

It wasn’t Scully trying to wake him up. Scully knew if you parked his car on this side of the street, it would be stale and sticky in the morning. That and the name thing.

“Fox,” the voice said more sternly.

“Mulder,” he mumbled.

“It’s me, Diana,” she said shaking his shoulders and he could clearly see her blue eyes and brown hair coming into focus. She had worry lines at her eyes and around her frowning mouth. “Fox.”

“I heard you,” he managed and wiped a hand across his eyes. “Did you drive me here?”

“I found you in the parkade at the university,” she told him.

“Scully said I need a doctor,” he said and swallowed hard. “Scully… She’s my doctor. Can you call her?”

“I’m going to get you upstairs to bed,” she assured him and he couldn’t find the energy to hear a lie in her voice so he nodded.

Somehow, Diana was able to help him out of the car and he was able to put one foot in front of the other until he made it to his apartment door. It felt like a longer walk than the one he had with Scully in Antarctica. He had a head injury then and Scully was recovering from an alien virus.

_Why did this feel worse?_

“I don’t know Fox,” Diana said as she unlocked his door and helped him inside.

He landed with a slump on his couch and she shut the door.

“Am I talking out loud?” Mulder said and she nodded.

He could hear her voice in his head assessing his apartment. _Looks cleaner than he used to keep it. I wonder if that’s her influence? Does he have a bed? Would he have a bed because of her?_

“Diana?” Mulder started. “I need some water.”

“Sure thing, Fox,” she answered tightly and left him to get some from the kitchen.

She returned with the glass and he could hear her thoughts invading his again.

_If he finds out what I’ve been doing-_

“Diana,” he interrupted the thoughts again and took a drink of his water. He didn’t want to hear them. “Can you help me-”

She took the water from him and helped him slowly into his bedroom. She was surveying the space around her as she helped him sit on his solid mattress. She noted internally there were no traces of another woman staying there. Mulder could have told her that if she bothered to ask but Diana wasn’t the type to ask about other women. Mostly because she didn’t care except Scully. Diana was curious about her and he could hear every thought she was having right now.

“I’m hot,” he said and Diana’s thoughts were interrupted again as he pulled on his tie.

She expertly tugged on the knot of his tie and helped him out of his dress shirt. “Pants too?”

Mulder nodded and she helped him with his belt.

This would not be one of the times he was being undressed by a woman in dire situations and he was worried about an involuntary erection. That part of his body was more than calm right now.

“Can you grab my pyjama pants from over there?” Mulder asked as he pointed to the folded pair on a chair near his dresser.

Diana picked up the yellow sleep wear and knelt in front of him to help him slip each foot inside. As the pants reached his knees, he took the waistband from her and laid back to pull them up his hips.

The lewd thought that entered Diana’s mind left quickly as he adjusted himself on the bed and pulled the covers over his body.

“Do you need anything?” Diana asked as she sat on the bed and put her hand to his head.

It wasn’t like when Scully took his pulse or monitored his fever. What Diana was doing was all for show.

“Can you get me something for my headache?” Mulder asked. “I think there’s aspirin in the bathroom.”

She retrieved the bottle and handed him two pills that he swallowed dry. Diana made a face and left to get his water so he could wash it down. As soon as he handed her back the glass, sleep took over his mind and he found solace in silence.

He dreamt of a white beach and a figure in the distance in a linen dress. The red hair was unmistakable and he could tell it was her.

_Scully!_

His mind called out to her but the waves were too loud. He could feel his hair being blown by the wind and a warm air on his face. He could hear seagulls in the distance and the white sand was beautiful. It wasn’t a place from his childhood. His mind had created a place from a something else he saw once in a photograph.

_Scully!_

She turned to face him with pinked cheeks and her hair was blowing around her face. She looked at him the way she inspected evidence as though it was foreign and unknown. Even from far away he could see her eyes studying and analyzing him.

_Scully, come here!_

She was walking towards a ship that looked like what he had seen in the photos. The markings on the sides of the ship matched the rubbings that gave him the headaches.

_Scully! Don’t!_

When she turned back to him, she turned into a pillar of salt and blew away with the wind coming off the waves of the ocean.

What woke Mulder was the phone ringing at his bedside and Diana answering it.

“Hello?” Diana greeted. There was a short pause. “Hold on please.”

Diana’s voice in his head told him it was Scully and he knew he would need to explain Diana’s presence in his home. He felt obligated but his energy reserves were weak. When Scully took care of him she pushed fluids like juice and water. She made him get out of bed once every few hours to eat and wash his face. She had a stern bedside manner that he appreciated because he needed stern when he was sick.

“Mulder where are you?” Scully’s voice rang through the phone, filled with concern.

“I’m here,” he said. “I’m resting.”

“Where? Who answered your phone?”

The thing about Scully was that she was extremely territorial and protective, much like Mulder. It wasn’t because neither of them distrusted each other’s judgement but in their combined past experience, people tended to be terrible.

“I’m home,” Mulder said and swallowed again. “It’s okay. Where are you?”

Scully continued to tell Mulder about the artefact and the passage written on it being from Genesis. He loved so much about Scully, even her faith, but he felt a frustration when God swayed her arguments over his. It wasn’t rational since a Bigfoot sighting could send him into a tailspin but that’s who he was.

They began countering every statement the other had and he could almost picture her looking with concern as she argued against everything he was telling her. It was so infuriating and his temper got the best of him.

“You’re wrong. It holds everything,” he told her. “Don’t you see? All the mysteries of science. Everything we can’t understand or won’t explain. Every human behaviourism - cosmology, psychology, everything from the X-Files - it owed all to them. It’s from them.”

Aliens crash landed to their planet and he was going to make her believe him if he could just get the hell out of that bed.

“Mulder, I will not accept that,” she told him and if they were in the office, he would be groaning at her and rolling his eyes. “It’s just not possible.”

“Well then you go ahead and prove me wrong, Scully,” he challenged and ended the call.

Mulder handed the phone to Diana and she left him while his mind took over to sleep again. Talking to her was so exhausting sometimes and he wanted to shake her. Sometimes he wanted to kiss her and do other things but his mind was too tired and frustrated to think of the other thing.

Suddenly he could hear Diana talking on the phone and he heard her asking for the Smoking Man. Telling Scully that she was right about Diana’s loyalties wouldn’t be a fun conversation later, especially after he had just argued with her. He needed all his energy for going head to head with someone as smart as her. Every theory, every peice of evidence, every idea had to be worked and processed through to ensure it’s authenticity. It gave their work more validation than Blevins expected when he assigned her down there and eventually, it made Mulder grateful for her.

Mulder felt his consciousness fighting to stay alert and he began to drift into another dream. They were in the hospital where he told her his feelings. She was staying with him and smiling down at him. Her hands were on his face and she said his name.

“Fox,” the voice said.

That was wrong. Scully said it on the occasion but she wouldn’t say it then.

“I’m here,” the voice continued.

“Scully…”

Hands that felt foreign and familiar slipped behind him in the bed and up his chest. The touch felt nice however it didn’t feel like Scully. It wasn’t the way Scully touched him.

“What…. Don’t.” Mulder started.

“Fox, it’s okay, I’m here,” a voice was hot in his ear.

He rolled over and saw the face of someone who he used to call a friend. “Diana?”

“Fox, I love you,” she told him so earnestly and the voice in her head was telling him it was in spite of everything that had happened. "I want to help you feel better."

"No," he said shaking his head. "Don't do this."

"Fox..."

“Where’s Scully?” Mulder asked as he tried to sit up in the bed.

The headache became more blinding. His eyes closed through the pain and he grabbed his head.

“Fox?”

It was Diana. Of course in the moment he wanted his friend, someone else appeared. A hand that touched his back burned on his skin and he jerked away from it.

“ _No_! Scully!” He fell back on his pillow and held his head in pain. “Scully!”

“I’m calling an ambulance!” she said and reached across him to grab the phone.

He could hear her mind worrying and he didn’t care to soothe her. He needed Scully. He needed the person who made it all right and could figure out what was going on with him.

“Sculllaaaaaay!”

It went black before he realized he was being restrained in an ambulance on their way to a hospital. Scully would never do this. Where was she? He called out for her over and over again until a prick on his arm felt hot and sleep overtook him again.


	23. Millennium Kiss

There was a shift after he said “The world didn’t end” because of all the things they hadn’t done was crossed over to the romantic intent of kissing on the mouth. He kissed her forehead, the back of her hand and once on the inside of her wrist by accident and she had kissed his cheek, his forehead and the top of his head. Kissing on the mouth wasn’t in their purview of gestures of affection.

By the time they reached the elevator doors there was a tension in the air that went beyond sexual. They hadn’t discussed what would happen if or when they crossed the line from platonic partners, which they hadn’t been for years, to people who kissed on the mouth. The limbo of which their relationship had sat for the last few years was now over all because he kissed her at midnight.

She kind of hated that he did that.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Mulder asked.

“You know I read a report that by the year 2020 they think the penny will be antiquated as a use of currency and out of circulation,” Scully replied as the elevator doors opened.

“What will we say when we want to ask for someone’s opinion on a first kiss?” he asked as he hit the P1 to get to her car.

“I don’t know,” she replied as the doors closed.

Mulder leaned against the wall of the car and studied her as she studied her keys. “Can you look at me at least?”

She glanced over her shoulder and then shook her head at her feet. “Sorry.”

“I didn’t propose Scully,” he said almost petulantly. “I didn’t mean to rush you.”

She turned to face him and she could tell he couldn’t read her expression. She knew she would have to tell him how she was feeling and that didn’t come easy to her. She could write it down, put it in a letter and send it off so she wouldn’t have to watch his face as she told him but there they were.

“I’m not mad at you. The last time we almost kissed a bee interrupted us two years ago. I’m not feeling rushed.”

His face turned to panic. “What then? No good?”

She shook her head. “Not that either.”

His face was expectant and she ran her tongue along her top lip. His eyes flickered down to watch the subconscious habit and she watched him mimic her action. She wondered if he could taste her lipstick on his lips or if he was just thinking about it.

“So what’s wrong?” he asked.

“Is this all or nothing with us, Mulder?” she asked. “Or is this casual and light?”

“Both I think,” he answered honestly. “Scully, I don’t think I could belong to anyone else after just knowing you so you have to decide that.”

This was it. He wanted her completely and she felt the same so what was her emotional handicap doing to her at that moment.

“Do we argue about what movies to rent or the toothpaste gunk on the tube?” she asked. She was being sincere because she just didn’t know if those issues would come up between them.

“Well you’ll have to remind me to be less of a slob,” he admitted. “But that’s not new with us. And you can try to be a little less rigid about certain things. Yin and yang, Scully.”

She smiled a little. “Okay.”

“Okay?” he repeated. “What’s okay, Scully?”

“You can take me on a date,” she informed him. “A nice one.”

“Is hitting baseballs nice?” Mulder asked.

“You won’t be doing any of the sort until that’s healed,” she reminded him as she pointed to his torn shoulder and he made a disappointed face. “You can take me to dinner or a movie, though.”

“I can do that,” he agreed and he frowned a little. “Don’t I take you to dinner now?”

“Well did you want to go to bed with me after those?” she asked playfully and he opened his mouth to reply but she put her fingers on his lips to stop him. “No, nevermind. Don’t answer.”

“You’d be shocked what you’re going to learn about my long standing desire to see you naked and not in a decontamination shower,” Mulder admitted.

Scully let out along breath. “Likewise.”

She felt a little less nervous now and more anxious with happy anticipation.


	24. Season 7, Millennium, Second Kiss

Their second kiss happened thirty five minutes after the first and while she felt relaxed immediately afterward, her mind began to race of what a second kiss could mean. Second kisses were less likely to be chaste and public, it would be more likely to be fervered and passionate. Second kisses had the intent of hallway declarations, gratitude of crazy life saving acts and seven years of wondering what if. Chemistry as partners was one thing but sexual chemistry was another.

She didn't doubt for one second that a second kiss would be bad but she was worried what it would mean and how quickly it could lead to everything else. She felt like they were ready and there were no "but's" following that statement.

He had been looking at her with that flirty discovery since Fort Marlene, that he had witnessed her in all her glory and she him. They knew what was underneath the badges, the guns and the professional facade. A second kiss meant they were going to discover that in spades with intent to please and entice sexual satisfaction.

A second kiss was definitely not going to be chaste. She could tell by the way his hand lingered at her lower back as she opened his door and the way he watched her as they made small talk on their way back to his place. He needed to be examined again, she needed to help him get out of his shirt and she wanted to ensure he would be sleeping with enough pillows as not to move his injured arm.

The doctor mode really did a lot for Mulder and Scully wasn't blind to see that.

They made it up the elevator and to his doorway when Scully reached for her key to his apartment door. He was watching her with the intensity and happiness he usually reserved for signs of extraterrestiral life. As if all the answers he was searching for were right there on her mouth and she felt her body start to flush.

She looked up at him with expectant eyes after she opened his door and he leaned in to kiss her again. She opened her mouth this time and allowed him to play inside. He pushed her body against the doorway with his and spread his legs wider to lessen the differential between their height.

Careful of his arm, she thread her fingers through his hair as he kissed her for all he was worth. If there was ever a doubt they had the sexual chemistry of the last seven years of a platonic partnership, it had disappeared along with the concern they were making out heavily in a public hallway.

The second kiss turned into the third inside his apartment and against a closed door with hips grinding against one another while they continued to pull at one another as carefully as they could. Her neck was a little sore and his shoulder hurt like a sonofabitch. Maybe the reason they never did this before was because it was too distracting. It was distracting from all the goals and truths they sought for because it felt so damn good.

She broke kiss and they panted against the door of his apartment. Whatever was coming next for them, sex would have to wait. She told him he needed to let his shoulder heal for two to four weeks before he partook in any strenuous activity and he would need to spend time with a physiotherapist.

He told her there was more than one way to skin a cat. Unfortuately as his doctor, she advised against it.

"What about as my partner?" he asked. He didn't mean FBI partner. He meant partner in life. Partner that was not the widely understood definition of the term. Partner in the way that meant he wanted her and no one else and he knew that much after just a few kisses.

"I wouldn't want to get in trouble from your doctor," Scully said as she searched his eyes. She saw what was there. Love and affection underneath lust and desire. "But I won't tell her if you don't."

They weren't going to rush into bed that night. Scully, who needed time to be ready for all things, wanted things to be a certain way for them. Healthy, uninjured bodies was always on that list. She wouldn't invite Mulder into her bed during a lonely night while she fought her cancer and he wouldn't be the guy she laid with after almost succuming to a zombie attack. Their lives were fucked up as it was.

"Maybe I could take you to dinner on Friday? If my pain-in-the-ass doctor says I can go a night without this thing?" Mulder said as he nodded toward his sling.

"Wear the sling and I'll cook you dinner," Scully negotiated.

Mulder kissed her softly on the lips and nodded once. "Deal."


	25. Season 7, Millennium

There was a silence in the car full of tension in anticipation to the next kiss. Mulder could feel himself on the walk out of the hospital wanting to try again. He wanted to taste her mouth and feel her in his hands. He also needed to get his sling off and change the bandage on his shoulder. 

Scully parked on Mulder’s street and looked at him from across the car. “I’d like to check your bandages before I go home.”

Mulder nodded obediently and followed her up to his apartment. She used her keys to open his door and he appreciated the intimacy in that they had keys to one another’s homes. They weren’t a traditional couple however his mind screamed yet at the end of that statement. Yet. They were getting there.

Of all the things they had to look forward to he was happy they could skip the “this is what I look like in the morning” or “this is the worst version of myself I’ve been hiding from you” moments. He knew in the morning her face was puffy and sweet from sleep while her hair curled at the base of her neck if she got too hot under the covers. He knew the worst part about Scully was really something most people would admire. She was fiercely independent and she tried to hide her feelings as a way of preventing herself from relying on too many people. He knew she relied on him and felt close to him. That was enough.

“Where do you want to do this?” Mulder asked as he gestured to his shoulder.

“The couch is too low,” Scully pointed out and glanced over to his bedroom door with flushed cheeks. 

“The table?” Mulder offered.

She nodded. “I’ll just grab the first aid kit.”

It was a provision Scully supplied to his apartment after he tried to hide a broken finger from her while working undercover to infiltrate a terrorist group. 

She returned with the red canvas bag and took out a few supplies. Gently, she removed the sling with skill and care. Their eyes held a beat and Scully pointed to his T-shirt. 

“I’m just going to-” she stopped herself as she gestured to his shirt.

“Undress me?” he offered.

“Yes.” Her tongue moistened her top lip nervously and she took a breath.

“You don’t my permission to take my clothes off, Scully,” Mulder teased as she helped him out of his sleeves. First his good arm, then over his head to slide gently down his bad arm. “If I didn’t know any better I would have said you’ve done that before.”

A smile played on her lips. “The way you flirt is shameful.”

“I have no shame,” Mulder replied honestly. 

He really didn’t. He made no effort to hide his desire for her or his needs. If he wasn’t injured he might be trying to help her out of her clothing. He caught the look of fear and desire on her face.

“I can stop if you want,” he asked but his hand went to her hip anyway.

Scully looked into his eyes. “Don’t stop.”


	26. Season 7, Kiss Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush, before they got too romantic

He showed up at seven forty five with Chinese take-out, a case file and a bottle of wine. 

The work was the excuse he used for himself to show up randomly on a weeknight after they had parted ways at the office only hours before. The Chinese take out was because he knew she couldn’t turn away a good chicken chow mein and the wine was because he liked watching Scully cut fresh strawberries to put in her glass with the same precision she put toward an autopsy. 

Mulder’s timing was perfect as always. She had just had a long hot bath after a strenuous yoga class and she was getting ready to put dressing on the sad looking salad she picked up on her way home. 

When she answered the door his face showed the appreciation to Scully not wearing a bra under her grey “Navy Athletics” t shirt and black sweatpants. 

“Hello,” she greeted first. 

Mulder handed her the wine and kissed her cheek. “I brought something really sciency but freaky deaky.”

Scully closed the door behind him and appreciated the wafting smell of almond chicken and ginger beef flooding her nose. “And food.”

“Of course,” he said as he unloaded the boxes. 

Scully took plates from the cupboard and handed Mulder a wine bottle opener. She put her salad back in the fridge and took a handful of strawberries for their wine. Mulder would never voice his appreciation for the garnish but they both knew he liked the flavour it added to the wine as much as she did. 

In a choreographed maneuver of cutting, pouring, portioning and finding utensils, they quickly found themselves at the kitchen table with the case file at the other end, waiting her eyes to see the “sciency” and “freaky deaky.”

One of the things she liked the most about Mulder, Oxford educated and raised among good manners, appreciated colloquialisms and slang. He liked to throw them out after ten dollar word monologues or arguing a point. 

Mulder took a bite of his sweet and sour pork and nodded in approval. “Ming’s has the best.”

Scully took his fork and put it to her mouth, taking a bite from the large ball of meat pierced on the tines. “Mmmmm, very good.”

He watched her chew slowly and she licked a droplet of sauce of her lips. 

“What?” she asked with a half smile.

“Kiss me,” he prompted her sweetly and leaned in.

The kissing was new for them. The kissing was fun and exciting but usually happened after a few hours together and some romantic overtures had been expressed through the night. 

Scully leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his, feeling the rush of newness to this romance and the thrill of having him all to herself. His hands were in her hair quickly and their mouths opened to savor each other. She tasted the spicy flavour of the ginger he had sampled. 

It was becoming familiar to kiss him like this with intent and fervor. She loved how he held her head with one hand while the other rubbed up her back, pulling her closer. His five o’clock shadow scratched at the skin around her mouth and she would have sore skin to cover the next day. 

What a sacrifice for kissing Mulder like this.

They had kissed like this in the car, in his office once and in his apartment. They had yet to bed together but not because they didn’t want to. His sling had come off on Sunday after his shoulder had nearly been torn out of its socket by a zombie and of all the things Scully was going to chance, she wasn’t taking him to the ER because they rushed into sex. 

The sudden thought he might have come here for that caused her to break the kiss first. 

“Everything okay?” he asked as he kissed along her jawline.

He did that really well too. 

“Uh yeah…” Scully tried to revel in the feeling of his mouth on her. She wanted his mouth everywhere and it suddenly dawned on her she might be ready for the next step of their physical relationship too.

Of course she felt ready to be romantic with Mulder but sex changed things. It always did and her apprehension to it finally happening was based on a few things. One, the newness of the relationship before sex happened was fun and exciting. Everything felt great and no feelings were hurt so far. Two, it had been a couple of years and as much as she missed it, she had some anxiety. Three, once they went there she didn’t want to go back. 

The holding pattern they had found themselves in was pretty good. It was innocent a little but also bordering on not. She liked that. She knew how he felt when he was hard against her but she had yet to feel him in her hand. 

“Mulder,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he said into her skin. 

His teeth found the tendon on her neck that shot a feeling down into her belly. She bit back a moan as her teeth held onto her bottom lip. 

“Food,” she managed. 

Mulder sat up and looked at her fully. She saw the apprehension in his eyes too but it was paired with desire and love.

Okay, maybe the anxiety could take a back seat if he was going to look at her like that.


	27. Season 7, Before Rush

Mulder awoke to the sound of the water running, the smell of coffee brewing and an empty bed. He rubbed the back of his hand across his eye and blinked a few times to adjust to the bright sun filling his room. 

He stepped over the landmines of clothing and shoes littered across his floor to make his way to the bathroom. After relieving himself and brushing his teeth he turned to find his sprite of a partner standing in his bedroom holding two cups of coffee and her toothbrush resting in the side of her mouth. 

“Hi,” she said nervously. 

Mulder smiled and resisted the urge to cover himself. “Uh, good morning.”

For second time morning afters they were still a little awkward but he wasn’t expecting Scully to look like she did. She had donned her panties and the crisp white dress shirt she had unbuttoned from his body the night before. She had bed head but messier from his hands running through it, pushing her into the mattress while his body moved against hers. 

He looked down to the pale pink polish on her toes and then up to her face which was now the same shade. She had a glow about her from the sex but her own nervousness. 

“Is one of those for me?” he asked as he gestured to the coffee in her hands.

“Oh!” She shook her head and handed him the coffee with sugar. She removed the toothbrush from her mouth and took a sip of her own cup. “Sorry.”

Mulder took a hesitant sip. “Good.”

“It’s the same beans you have in your cupboard, Mulder,” she reminded him.

“Tastes better when you make it,” he said as he watched her. 

Scully blushed a little further as she waved her toothbrush next to her bare legs. She suddenly set her coffee on the dresser, crossed the room and found her case to put the instrument back in her bag.

“You can leave that here,” he invited. 

She looked down at the tool in her hand and he watched her lick her lower lip. That was her tell when she wanted something or she was hesitant. “Well..”

“Do you have to rush?” he asked.

Scully moved to the bathroom and placed the toothbrush in the cup holder next to Mulder’s. “No rush.”

Mulder set his coffee next to hers and kicked his bedroom door closed with the heel of his foot. “Good.”

He swept her up into his arms and she let out surprised yelp. As he laid her down onto the bed and kissed the spots on her neck he marked with his mouth the night before she ran her hands up his bare back. The evidence of his desire for her rubbed against her thigh. 

“I think we scared the fish last night,” he told her as he positioned himself above her. His quick fingers made haste of her underwear and he tossed them behind them to land with the rest of their clothing. 

“I don’t think we did anything that is half as frightening as those tapes that aren’t yours,” Scully whispered as she reached between them to guide him inside. 

Mulder nipped at her collar bone. “Scully, they’re not used to such dirty language from you.”

She blushed further as she remembered the string of words that came flowing out of her mouth as Mulder spent thirty five minutes showing her the benefit of eating sunflower seeds.

“Oh that.”


	28. Season 7, Rush

Scully walked around the bed as she rubbed the lotion into her arms. “Mulder where did you put my notes on Tony Reed?”

“I put them in the file I delivered to Kersh this afternoon,” he answered as he watched her. “Don’t put your nightgown back oooon! Oh nevermind.”

Her skin was still pink from their shower and there were marks along her collarbone from where his mouth had marked her earlier. An oral fixation for Mulder meant more than kissing her sex at every opportunity. The man liked to taste her everywhere.

Scully pulled the nightgown over her hips. “I can’t sleep naked.”

Mulder was propped against a pillow and watching her bedtime routine. His was decidedly less detailed and involved a quick brush of his teeth and deciding whether or not to put on underpants again. Usually he went without.

He shook his head. “It’s a damn shame.”

Scully returned from her quick trip to the hall to find her briefcase.

“Sorry, where did you put them?” she repeated. She wasn’t listening to him. She was in full-thought mode that wanted to finish the task in front of her. 

Mulder kicked one leg out from the covers. “They’re with Kersh’s secretary.”

Scully’s eyes fixated on his sleepy face and her jaw dropped. “Those weren’t my final notes and there was that dirty drawing you did on the back of one of my pages.”

“Uh, that wasn’t-” he stopped. She was right.

“I told you not to go through my briefcase,” she rolled her eyes. “We have to get that report back.”

“What is he going to do? Censure me?” he shrugged.

“Did you forget the drawing depicted us doing it on Kersh’s desk?” Scully reminded him and he made a regretful face. His doodles, while getting more realistic and better with aspect ratio had become slightly more pornographic and not suitable for work. She quickly found new underpants and went to the closet to get her clothes. “Get dressed.”

“You’re kicking me out?” he asked. 

“We’re breaking into his office and getting those notes back,” Scully answered as she pulled out a turtleneck from her closet. “Get dressed.”

“You’re not serious,” he replied.

“Mulder, call the Gunmen. We’re getting those notes back tonight,” she ordered. 

“You know, this is without a doubt the stupidest plan you’ve ever had,” Mulder declared as he found his boxer shorts. “Of course I’m in.”


	29. Season 7, Orison

She was busy in the kitchen which was a rare sight to see. Scully was pouring over a recipe then searching the stack of ingredients she recently purchased to measure and toss them into the pot. 

She was going to make chili for Mulder because she promised him. It was a weird, domestic thing she had never wanted to do for anyone before but he mentioned cheesy broccoli corn biscuits and spicy chili with whole mushrooms, beans and corn. Suddenly she had the urge to provide him with this meal. Maybe it was because he had let her stay there after Donnie Pfaster and had been taking care of her so well. Or maybe it was because he had gone into work that day and said “I’ll be home at five, honey!” like they were Ozzy and freaking Harriet. But she thought instead of staying in his apartment one more day with nothing to do besides clean, because she had done that the day before, she would make him a meal and say thanks. 

When Mulder came home with his briefcase in hand, his tie askew and the newspaper between his fingers he hardly could believe his eyes. But who could believe Scully would cook? He wouldn’t. He believed in bigger lies than that and the man liked to believe in anything. 

“Scully?” he asked. 

“Hey Mulder!” Scully smiled at him over her shoulder as she stirred the pot. 

“You’re feeling better,” he noted. 

Five days ago she shot and killed a man in her apartment and the crime scene crew was still trying to get the blood out of her blonde oak floors. Mulder didn’t know that was a classification but apparently those were not easy to get blood out of. 

“My apartment will be ready tomorrow,” she noted and looked back to her cookbook. Mulder recognized it but had never cracked the binding on it. She looked over the ingredients list and then at the stack of spices. “Have you seen the…? Oh.”

Her voice was cut off my his mouth on her neck and his hands on her hips. 

“This is so fucking adorable, Scully.”

She tried to shrug off his kisses out of modesty because him complimenting her in that way was still new for them. Yet as she stood there with an apron on, a dishtowel over her shoulder, some cornmeal powder on her face and the smell of cumin filling his apartment he couldn’t hold back. 

“I want to say thank you for letting me stay here,” she whispered as he kissed her sensitive skin. Her lip had healed and he could kiss her there.He would kiss her there later tonight. “So… I’m making the chili and biscuits we talked about.”

“I didn’t know I had all this food in my apartment,” Mulder said as he rubbed himself into her backside and looked at the food on his barely used counter tops. 

“I walked down the block to the grocer and picked up everything except the garlic,” she replied and he nodded. 

“Well, I brought wine,” he said and went to retrieve the bottle. “We can play house until tomorrow, then you’re out on your ass you free loader.”

Scully snapped the damp towel at him and laughed as he yelped as the end of it caught his backside.


	30. Season 7, Signs and Wonders

“I’d say it’s good news for her that she’s not here right now,” Mulder said to Reverend Enoch O’Connor. “Considering what you tried to do to her.”

The interrogation went as you might expect it to and the good reverend tried to imply Scully could have learned something about herself.

Scully stewed over a man of faith telling her to be ready for a test in her righteousness and purity. She was downright livid the man overpowered her and put her hand inside a cage of rattle snakes. The entire car ride to the McMinn County Sheriff’s Station he could see her blood visibly boiling.

Mulder scoffed at the idea that a few snakes might teach his skeptical partner anything about her soul. She was already too good for this world with her moral standards and true grit. Scully rolled her eyes at comments like that but appreciated when he complimented her all the same.

What frustrated her about this case more than others was the play on the hearts of those who worshiped God at a church that insisted on fundamentalism and sacrifice beyond what she believed. He might relate snake handling to communion wafers. On the other hand she could relate seeing Elvis in a potato chip to the firm Big Blue was responsible for the death of Queequeg over the giant alligator Mulder shot and killed.

Nevertheless these disagreements in their faith wasn’t the thing that made their relationship have a hiccup or two.

After Gracie left the station and they locked O’Connor in his cell for the night, Mulder found Scully waiting in the car to drive back to their motel.

“You okay?” Mulder asked as they exited the parking lot.

“I’m pretty livid,” she admitted. “At myself mostly.”

Mulder turned to her more in the car. “Why?”

“I have up to date training in hand to hand combat, I had my weapon and he still was able to put me in a submissive position and-”

Mulder put his hand on her thigh and she flinched. He removed the offending extremity and he held his hands up in defense.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m just angry at myself.”

“I don’t want to objectify you or make you feel like less of an agent-”

“Don’t you?” she interrupted but she was almost smiling.

Mulder shook his head and smiled back. “Fine, I do mean to objectify you Scully but in all the ways that still respect you.”

She pulled changed lanes to turn into the parking lot of their motel. “Okay, Mulder.”

“You’re pretty sexy when you’re hot and bothered,” he admitted as his hand found her thigh again. She didn’t flinch and he watched the blood rush to her cheeks. Her tongue darted out in her nervous tick of feeling unassured when Mulder gave her a compliment she hadn’t heard before. He leaned across the car to kiss her. “I mean… in all the ways I respect you but objectify you.”

His lips brushed against hers and she smiled at him a little.

“I don’t mind when you do it,” she confessed.

Mulder’s hand found her breast under her suit jacket and he buried his face into her neck. “Do you still want me to call out for pizza?”

She nodded. “If there is anywhere that delivers.”

His lips took hers and he kissed her with promise and fervor. She tasted amazing, like mint and the underlying Scully-ness that he longed for during these investigations. His lips kissed along her jaw line and nipped at the skin behind her ear.

“What if there’s not pizza?” he asked as her fingers thread through his hair.

“Chicken,” she whispered. “Chicken take out.”

“Chinese?” he offered. He thought he saw a relatively decent place for chicken chow mien.

Scully nodded as one hand found her centre through her pants. “Sure, fine, whatever.”

They opted for sex in her motel room while they waited for delivery but the ginger beef went cold after they got news Enoch O’Connor was in the hospital. That was a sacrifice Mulder could accept making.


	31. Season 7, After Signs and Wonders

Mulder smiled as he pulled Scully on top of his lap. His white pressed shirt looked better on her than it ever did on him and if there was a way to get her to dress like this when they were away from the office, he would make it mandatory for their relationship. Although, she did have that lacy black thing he really liked too.

Scully in any state of dress or undress was amazing but poised on top of him with a sly smile on her face was probably his favourite. He was sure this naked, rumpled mess underneath her with the sun shining in could be her favourite.

It was the perfect Saturday morning. They had woken up late and planned to do nothing that day except for be with each other. Mulder would make an excuse he needed to grab a run when Scully left in the afternoon and he would show up with dinner and work files a few hours later. He liked faking excuses to see her two nights in a row.

“Mulder,” she sighed as she sunk down onto him.

He tried to keep his eyes open to watch her as she moved up and down but she was a visual overload.

“Kiss me,” he whispered and she did without stopping her hips. She was damn talented and so good at this.

“I told you idiots he’s not home!” Frohike’s voice bellowed from the other side of the door. “If he’s not answering his cell or his home phone, he’s not home.”

“He’s probably out for a run,” Byers mused. “We’ll wait for him to get back.”

“Just use the key, Byers,” Langley instructed.

Scully’s eyes went wide and she scrambled faster than Mulder had ever seen her move off his lap. The door opened as she was darting from the living room into his bedroom.

“What the fuck?” Mulder pulled the blanket from the back of the couch over his lap.

“Dude!” Langly cried as he turned around.

Byers turned the deepest shade of red while Frohike was staring at the closed door to Mulder’s bedroom.

“Guys!” Mulder called.

“I don’t know whether to give you a high five or an apology,” Frohike said as he studied the pair of panties on the floor next to Mulder’s feet.

“You could leave,” Mulder pointed out.

“Sorry, Mulder!” Byers called as he pulled Langley towards the door. He left the file on they had brought over on the table near the front entrance. “Take a look at that when you’re-”

“Finished?” Langley offered.

“Nice job buddy,” Frohike said as he walked over to high five Mulder. “Can I keep those?”

“No!” Mulder yelled and leaned down to pick up the lacy pink undergarment.

Frohike held his hands up in defense and moved quickly toward the door.

“You guys are teenage boys trapped inside adult male bodies,” Byers said as the door closed behind them.

Mulder laid his head against the back of the couch and sighed.

“You need to get your key back from them,” Scully instructed as she came out of the bedroom.

“Thanks for leaving me in the lurch, there friend,” Mulder rebuked playfully as he stood up. He was still holding her panties.

She took her panties from him and tossed them on the couch behind him. She pressed herself into him and smiled. “Put the chain lock on your door and take me to bed.”

Mulder picked Scully up into a fireman’s carry. “Don’t need to tell me twice.”


	32. Season 7

Scully looked across the car to Mulder as he studied the entrance of the country club. The young valets in red jackets waited for them to exit the car and Scully watched as he tugged on the collar of his white shirt. 

“Ready?” she asked as she placed her hand on his knee. 

Mulder looked over to her and she saw the panic on his face. It was the same face he made when he thought they were trapped on a roof in Dallas. Blank, wide eyed and a sheen of sweat across the top of his brow. 

“Are you nervous?” Scully asked with a slight smile.

Mulder shook his head with a confident frown and then nodded his head causing the car to fill with her laughter.

“What are you nervous about?” she asked gently and Mulder winced. “Bill?”

“In all fairness the last time he saw me he called me a sorry son of a bitch and if I called any guy that I certainly wouldn’t want him doing the things I do to you on a regular basis,” Mulder admitted. 

He was referring to the sex. They were having a lot of it these days and if he projected on himself the anger Bill felt towards Mulder on a man who could be dating Samantha as an adult, he would foresee problems. But then again, he would probably just want his sister to be happy and Scully assured him she was. Bill seemed to have conditions attached to those wishes. 

“I don’t care what he says to me or what he calls me,” Mulder told her. “I just can’t stand the way he talks to you. And family reunion or not, if he’s going to treat you like shit I’m going to kick his ass.”

Scully reached across the car and pulled his mouth to hers for a long kiss. When she pulled back she looked at him and smiled. “He said the same thing about you.”

“He knows about us?” Mulder asked. The valet knocked on the window and Mulder rolled it down. “Give us a minute?”

“Sir, can you pull off to the curb there?” the young man asked. “Please.”

Mulder put his hand up in agreement and pulled his car off to the right so other vehicles could pass by and leaned his head against the seat. 

“You could always go home and I’ll catch a ride back later,” Scully offered. “If this is going to be too difficult for you.”

“I want to be here,” Mulder said. “I can survive being glared at all evening by Bill but I don’t want to deal with seeing him act that way to you. It’s just too far.”

“Mulder I can handle Bill,” she assured him. “And if he’s really too much we can hang around my Aunt Olive. She has no filter and loves to tell him to fuck off.”

The news there was more than one Scully-relative that liked to tell Bill where to stick it delighted him and gave him the reassurance to go inside. He made a loop around the parking lot and handed his keys to the valet. Scully took the ticket and tucked it playfully in his jacket pocket.

“Let’s go G-Man,” she said as she took his hand.

Inside the banquet hall was a full mix of tall and short red haired relatives. Dana Scully, daughter of Margaret and Bill, was not the shortest yet Mulder appreciated pointing out to her that most of the women her height were either elderly or yet to hit puberty.

“Excuse you?” she said in mock incredulity. 

“Did I stutter?” Mulder teased back. “You’re small.”

Scully shifted on her heels and leaned into him. “I thought you didn’t mind the small places.”

His mouth crooked up in a smile. “You have no shame.”

“Not after last night, I don’t,” she muttered under her breath. “Hey there’s my brother Charlie.”

“That’s all I’m going to be thinking about now,” he admitted.

“Make a short joke, suffer the effects of a sexual innuendo and learn how I felt for the first seven years of this partnership,” she replied as they approached her family.

“If I had any idea the innuendo did to you what it’s done to me I don’t know if that would have changed anything,” Mulder replied and Scully reached over to give his backside a squeeze. “Jesus!”

“Mom!” Scully called and approached to give her mother a hug. 

She might not be a good liar but Dana Scully could definitely play innocent when she needed to. It would be a long, albeit pleasantly hard afternoon for the pair.


	33. Season 7, After the Amazing Maleeni

There were many sides to Scully. The serious professional side that the FBI knew and loved. The petulant, rebellious side that liked working with Mulder and sticking her chin up at men in authority in an unruly fashion. There was the quiet side of her that appreciated the solitude of her home and the girly side that spent three hours shopping. He loved all those sides.

He had met the silly side of Scully but that side of her had gone into hiding after her abduction and retreated further during her cancer. It came out a few times after she went into remission yet it had little to play with after they were taken off the X-Files. Working under Kersh did not bring out either of their playful natures but it definitely made Mulder want to rebel. 

By the time they got the X-files back they were seeing more of the lighthearted side of each other. By New Years he had worked up the courage to kiss her again. His plan was that if she rebuffed his advances he could say it as all for the tradition of the holiday. She didn’t push him away, she smiled and encouraged many more kisses.

Their trip to Los Angeles brought out the side of Scully who appreciated a little silly. Maybe it was the sun, maybe it was being able to do a little magic trick Mulder couldn’t but either way, he still couldn’t quite grasp what he was looking at. 

They solved their case, their flight back to D.C. wasn’t until tomorrow and Mulder ran to get them take out for dinner. When he opened her hotel room door she was wearing a fitted white t-shirt with a green alien face on it, a pair of pink underpants and fuzzy socks. No shorts on her legs and her little bottom was shaking to the radio as it played Van Morrison.

“Where am I?” Mulder said as he set down the bags with their salads and the pizza box on her bedroom table.

“Ah you’re back!” she said and took a sip from the tumbler in her hand. 

It was full of a light pink liquid and there was ice clinking in her glass. Scully found the mini-bar. Scully after a a drink of gin was giggly and fun. He loved this Scully because she was silly and slightly more honest.

“Turn around let me check you for alien bulbs,” Mulder ordered. 

She shrugged and she turned her back to him as she continued to bop along to the music. She used her free hand to brush the hair from the back of her neck. 

“See? I’m just a little tipsy from a drink I might have made too strong,” she said proudly. Scully turned around and threw her arm around his neck. “Have a drink with me Mulder.”

“Did you go get ice dressed like that?” he asked as he gestured to her bare state.

Scully laughed and his face lit up. “No silly Mulder I did not.”

Mulder took a sip from her drink and noted at the strength of it. There may be just a splash of cranberry juice among that gin. “Jeez!”

“Mulder,” Scully whispered as she pulled his face to hers. “I have to ask.”

“Anything, Scully,” he said in the same mock serious tone.

“Do you think I’m spooky?” 

Her eyes were wide and staring at him with as much seriousness as her tipsy self could muster but he could tell she wanted to know. 

“Why?” he asked with genuine concern.

“I haven’t moved from my apartment after all that happened there,” Scully shrugged. The light bulb went on in his brain when he connected the closeness to which they had dealt with Donnie Pfaster and the appreciation Scully had toward this beverage. “My brother said I’m fucked up.”

Oh brother Bill, when will you stop meddling?

“We dealt with some dark stuff this year,” Mulder admitted.

“Just this year?” 

He shrugged and pulled her toward the bed. Scully sat next to him and looked at him in concern. 

“Maybe you’re spooky but I like spooky,” he said. 

“I said that to you once,” she remembered. 

She had. In the car after they left Tom Colton while they investigated Tooms on their own. It warmed his heart and he replayed that moment every difficult day they had together. She liked him.

“Okay Mr Spooky, have a drink with me,” she prompted.

“Why don’t we get some pizza in that tummy of yours,” he suggested. 

Mulder as a caretaker was a switch for them but she was allowed this. 

“I’ll have some food when you get a drink,” she bartered and he conceded defeat. A joint buzz on gin and pizza would be their fate tonight.


	34. Season 7, Wanna Bet

She was standing with her hands on her hips and a challenging look on her face. Except instead of arguing a theory between science and the inexplainable they were discussing human anatomy and physical strength. More so, his upper body strength and endurance and hers. However the conversation crept up into their foreplay and left them bantering then arguing while naked. 

“Wanna bet?” Scully challenged again.

Mulder held his hand up. “I’m not arguing what is fact.”

“Oh,” she scoffed. “Now you think it’s a fact.”

“Scully I am a healthy adult male. I can do a hand stand longer than you can,” he said confidently. 

Scully clapped her hands once. “Okay big macho man, let’s go.”

The edge of his mouth crooked up into a smile. “Sex now?”

“No!” she denied and his face fell. “We’re going to do a stand off.”

The competitive nature of Dana Scully, her stubborn mind and inability to be one-upped when she knew she could win had clearly taken over. Sex had been taken off the table for the time being and he knew until he won this hand-stand-off he wouldn’t be slipping inside her anytime soon.

“Clothes on or off?” he asked.

“Oh off, you’re not distracting me,” she said and walked over to the wall of her bedroom where she practiced hand-stands every morning. 

Yoga and meditation were good for a woman who preferred the constant movement of cardio. There was a spiritual element to the stillness she found in yoga and her body was benefiting from it immensely. 

“Big macho man,” Mulder scoffed as he approached. 

His erection was still at three quarters of its full mass and she gave a glance down to it before getting herself in position. 

“Ready?” she asked.

“Do you want to time it?” he asked as he sat next to her.

“No we’re going to do it at the same time. First one to quit has to…”

“What?” Mulder interrupted with a leer.

“Do the final reports for Skinner for a month!” she declared. 

Mulder raised his eyebrows. “Two months.”

“You’re on,” she accepted. 

They shook their arms out, stretched their necks and got into position. They counted to three and put their hands out and kicked their legs up simultaneously to hit the wall. Mulder made a grunting noise but stayed up. Scully breathed through her mouth and concentrated on a spot on the floor. 

Mulder attempted not to look over to her because watching Scully practice yoga naked was always a life long dream of his. Realistically he had the fantasy immediately after Scully told him she was taking a yoga class but it felt as lifelong as any other dream he wanted to come true.

“How’s it going?” she asked with ease.

“Fine,” he quipped. He wasn’t fine. This was harder than it looked and the blood was rushing to his head. Why did he like doing these as a kid?

Another ten seconds passed by and he felt sweat starting to trickle down his back up to his head. Not a good sign. His hands and arms felt fine but the rest of his body wasn’t holding up its end of the bargain. All it had to do was outlast Scully and he could get out of finishing three reports that were past due to Skinner. Three reports he was supposed to be working on tonight but he took Scully to a Chinese buffet and they got ice cream cones. It was coupley and cute and not how they usually spent time together but they ended up in bed together all the same. Mulder decided the romantical side of his personality needed to come out more. And he needed to stop questioning Scully’s prowess when he was about to enter her. 

“Scully,” Mulder struggled.

“You can quit if you want Mulder,” she encouraged. 

He thought he was seeing spots and what he didn’t want was to pass out. That would be more embarrassing than if he quit. 

His leg started to dip down and she scoffed. 

“Okay now I’d rather pass out before I quit,” he grumbled.

“If you quit you can watch me do this until I quit,” she pointed out.

The light bulb in his brain went off and his libido took over. His leg touched the ground, followed by his other and he sat up to see her. 

“This is certainly better,” he commented.

“Admit I win,” she ordered.

“Whatever you say,” he agreed and his head cocked to the side in that way he did when he was taking in the view of something he admired. 

Scully’s right leg touched the ground and then her left. Before she could open her mouth to tease him about winning he was on top of her. He made her squeal in delight before he caused her to moan in pleasure.


	35. Season 7, X Cops

His body felt like it was on fire. She was grinding her little hips into him with her hands in his hair and her skirt hiked up around her waist. She was kissing him for all he was worth as she made little noises and their take out sat cooling in the backseat of her car. He didn’t care that his Chinese noodles would be cold by the time they made it upstairs. They were making out in a car on a well-lit street.

If this was dating Dana Scully then he wondered why he didn’t try to kiss her sooner. His brain suddenly reminded him that he did try a few years ago and alien virus carrying bees, trips to Antarctica and former girlfriends with bad timing got in the way. Not to mention that weird virus that infected his brain that sent her to Africa to try to fix. Their relationship was not normal.

Scully broke the kiss and they were panting with the fogged windows surrounding them. Her eyes were full of lust, her lips were swollen and she was still moving slightly against him in a purposeful dry hump that took Mulder back to his senior year in high school. But Macy Proops had nothing on Dana Scully. He knew this. He knew he was a lucky man and he thought about sending a thank you card to Blevins for assigning this tiny scientist to spy on him. She was a fantastic kisser.

“You keep looking at me like that, Scully, and we’re not going to make it to a bed,” Mulder quipped while he tried to maintain his cool exterior. It was all a facade because his erection was tenting in his suit pants and his tie was more than askew.

“I have…” Scully stopped herself. 

“What?” Mulder coaxed.

Confession Scully was fun. She told him things her mother didn’t know and they usually involved some fantasy that he was dying to fulfill or a past indiscretion he was determined to recreate.

She shook her head and smiled.

Mulder kissed along her jawline and down her neck. The Scully-spots he knew with his tongue and teeth. “Tell me a secret.”

“I’ve always wanted to…” She made a gesture toward the inside of the car. “In here.”

Mulder looked at her expression of half embarrassment and half hope that he might want to make that fantasy come true.

“Too many stakeouts,” she said as though she tried to shrug off the idea.

His hand slipped between them to feel the slippery material of her underpants wet with her desire. He thanked God for summertime and thigh high stockings. He pushed one finger inside of her.   
“Here?”

Scully closed her eyes and opened them again. “No, we definitely can’t here.”

Mulder moved his finger in and out of her. “No?”

Her body moved against his hand. “No…”

“No?” he repeated.

Reluctantly, Scully pushed his hand away. “We still have to finish that report.”

Mulder kissed her once more, softly, on the lips and nodded. “Then you probably need to give me a minute or more to cool down before we walk into my building.”

Her laugh filled the car and she maneuvered herself back to her drivers seat. “Take your time.”


	36. Season 7, The Work Out

“Come on Scully, get those little legs moving!” he called as he ran backwards. Up a hill.

Fuck him, her mind screamed. She ran, she did yoga. She was fit and appreciated getting her heart rate going. This was not any of those things. This was a hill climb to burn off his excess energy before they flew out of Colorado that afternoon.

The choice activity of her morning would have been to lay in a tub and read her book. She actually brought a book on a case and it was one she was enjoying reading. She was supposed to spend this working Saturday taking it easy since she had pulled a number of fourteen hour days this week.

Scully wiped the sweat off her brow with her sleeve and pushed herself to catch up. He was going to pay. And she just figured out how.

As they made their way down the trail toward the parking lot Mulder gave her an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

“You really pushed through that last mile,” he noted cheerfully. “Nice job Scully.”

“I’ve said this before Mulder and I’ll say it again. I don’t think we need to run together as a couples activity,” she replied and took a sip of her water.

Mulder coughed to cover his shock at the usage of the word “couple” since neither of them had been particularly vocal about qualifiers to their relationship since it shifted. But it definitely had shifted for the better.

Since their New Years kiss they had spent some wonderful weekends in bed together. They made out in parked cars, on couches, in the office, at a football game and they almost took it too far at a public library on a late Thursday night while Scully did research for a conference she was presenting at. She might be okay with Mulder doing some wonderful things with his mouth under a table in a private study room but she had a rule about them consorting in the same room while on assignment.

“You won’t do the other thing I like to do to burn off energy so why not get a run in?” he said as they approached their car.

Scully gave him a look over the car and pulled her running jacket over her head. Sweat was clinging to every item of clothing and she wanted to soak in a bubble bath with Epsom salts. Or take a cooling shower followed by a nap. Something that involved little effort.

Mulder shed his windbreaker as well and tossed it onto the back seat before starting the car. Scully studied his profile and the muscles on his biceps and shoulders then down to his forearms and hands. He really was a damn good looking man.

“We have three hours before our flight,” Mulder noted as he checked his watch. “That didn’t take all morning like I thought it would.”

“I think you need to buy me a meal now,” she said as she shifted in her seat and pointed to the sign that told them diner food was only 6 miles up the road.

And Mulder made good on that prompt. He ordered them eggs benedict to share, a bowl of fruit and sliced tomato while they drank fresh coffee and he tried to play footsie with her under the table. She let him a little since technically they weren’t investigating this case anymore.

As they paid for their food Scully stretched in her seat and she caught Mulder’s eyes study her form under her fitted t-shirt. His eyes flickered up to her face and she nonchalantly licked at her lower lip.

This would be easier than she thought.

“What?” she asked innocently as she could manage.

Mulder cleared his throat again. “Since we’re not technically on assignment anymore…”

“Yes?” she encouraged.

“And I know that hill climb wasn’t really your favourite thing to do…”

“You got that right, mister,” she confirmed with a slight smile.

“Maybe I could…” Mulder pursed his lips. “Make it up to you?”

Scully sighed. “How do you propose to do that?”

Mulder leaned conspiratorially over the table and gestured with his finger for her to come closer. She leaned over the table toward him perked her ear to listen to whatever he was going to propose.

“Massage in the shower? And maybe you can do that thing we did last week that you liked more than you though you would,” he finished with a leer.

She felt her cheeks flush a little. The thing he was talking about came about during a playful moment between them. They were playfully wrestling on his bed when she showed him the only way she would be able to overpower him with her body weight which would be to sit on his chest with his biceps pinned by her knees. Before she could grab his leg to finish the maneuver he pulled her backside forward, pushed her underwear aside and proceeded to make her quake above him. He said he was helpless to stopping himself since she was wearing just a pair of panties and his white t-shirt to bed. She came twice and didn’t care about reasons.

Scully sat up straight and took a sip of her coffee. “I think that’s a good way to spend an afternoon.”

Mulder checked his watch. “I plan to make the most of the two hours before we need to be at the airport.”

Scully smiled. “As do I.”


	37. Set Season 7, Per Manum

“I just have to figure out a way to ask him,” Scully told the doctor. 

It was not a usual question for them and frankly, it was a little early in whatever their relationship was to be family planning but there it was. She had a window, she had an idea for a donor and she wanted a baby. She wanted a baby more than she wanted answers to the truth and that said a lot for a desire that had been dormant for most of her adult life.

Mulder, would you help me make a baby, the question repeated in her head as she drove to his apartment. 

He would be there since it was reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation tonight and Mulder had a soft spot for a certain female character. He got Chinese take out, he picked up a six pack of beer and worked his way through three episodes of the show and called her during commercial breaks. Sometimes she stayed on the line through the episode so he wouldn’t have to call her back. He talked about the idealism of The Federation and how much he admired Jean Luc Picard for being bald in the future. 

Scully always retorted that hair was probably less important once you were the captain of your own spaceship or the Assistant Director of the FBI but she liked to tease Mulder she had a soft spot for men who embraced their hair loss. Mulder always paused for a moment to think of their boss and she would laugh. It was a running joke between them they liked to play on since Scully was pretty vocal about how much she liked Mulder’s hair. 

“This is a good one, Scully,” Mulder said as he answered the phone. “Troi is getting together with a negotiator who’s part Betazoid.”

“Mulder you’re such a nerd,” she replied as she pulled onto his street. “Besides, you just like this episode because of the sex.”

“Where are you?” he asked.

“I was on my way to you, actually,” she said nervously. 

“Did something happen at the doctors?” he asked. She could see him sitting up and looking concerned. “Are you okay?”

“No,” she replied quickly. “I’m fine, actually.”

“We talked about that word before,” he reminded her. 

Sexual relationships with your work-partner meant they could make conditions of how you responded.

“No really,” she assured him. She parked her car and left it idling with an obvious realization she was stalling to go up to ask him. “I’m fine and there was good news.”

The TV went on mute and she could hear him breathing.

“What kind of good news?” he asked.

She didn’t want to do this over the phone, she wanted to speak to him in person so she could see his face as she asked him but maybe if she saw him she might falter with emotion. 

“Well, I got good news,” she started. “Great news. Doctor Parenti said the eggs are viable and we can start right away.”

“You’re quitting,” he said in disbelief. 

“I’m not, I wouldn’t do that to you,” she assured him.

“Scully, I want you to have everything you want and we can work something out for time off, maternity leave or whatever you need,” he stated as though he was missing what she was really trying to say. He was because she was terrible at explaining what she needed while trying to dance around the issue. “I just don’t want to see you leave this job because you want to start a family. A lot of female agents make it work. We can make sure we’re not on the road as much or hell I’ll hire a nanny to come with us.”

“Mulder-”

“Look just don’t… I want you to have this, I do,” he continued. “But I don’t want you to leave-”

“Mulder I’m trying to ask you to be the father!” Scully interrupted.

There was a long pause on the end of the line and she couldn’t hear him breathing anymore. Just the buzz from his television and the sound of a siren passing his building on the street.

“Are you downstairs?” he asked as he recognized the echo of the ambulance through the phone.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“Why didn’t you come up?” he asked.

“I’m embarrassed,” she admitted. 

She never longed for the typical ‘female’ wishes that her sister and girlfriends longed for. She didn’t realize how much she wanted a child until she met Emily and even then her logical mind couldn’t work out how to have her and their work at the same time. 

Of course, her passion for answers took a backseat she saw this little girl in the hospital because who cares about the truth when your child is asking you to stop? To this day she lights a prayer candle for Emily and prays for forgiveness she didn’t try harder to save her. 

“Scully, you don’t need to be embarrassed,” he said finally.

“You’re the only one I trust to do this,” she replied. “I understand if you-”

“Can you give me a day to think about it?” he asked.

That meant no and her heart sank. She was already picturing a baby boy with his wild green eyes and her hair. 

“Sure,” she answered. “I’m, um, I might take tomorrow off.”

“Oh, uh,” Mulder cleared his throat. “Sure. I’ll call you.”

Scully nodded and hung up the phone. She wanted him to jump up and down and say yes. Now all she had was doubt.


	38. Season 7, All Things

He walked into the office Monday morning and surprised to see her there already. Mulder was feeling good about the weekend. He went to England, came back and Scully had a religious awakening, settled her past and they drank tea on his couch. There were a few other details he left out. 

For one, he made her moan so loudly she flushed an even deeper hue of crimson than the one flushing her face of ecstasy that she covered her face with a pillow. The other thing was she didn’t spend the night. Nor did she wake him up before she left. 

He thought they were really making progress with their relationship. They had been sleeping together since February, it was now May but he still wasn’t always sure where they stood. She liked to keep him guessing at work and emotionally although he was certain neither was intentional. 

“Good morning,” he greeted. 

He had fancy coffees for them and flaky pastries she gave into having if they had spent a particularly rambunctious few hours in bed. That weekend Mulder felt could be followed up with a high calorie breakfast treat. She would eat salad with bee pollen yogurt later and blame him if her pants didn’t fit but they always did. The woman ran a marathon a week. She didn’t but the amount of miles she put in felt like it. 

“Good morning,” she greeted. He handed the coffee and pastry over to her before hanging his trench coat next to hers in the back area. “Oh you got the good stuff.”

Mulder walked over and took a sip out of the coffee she just drank from. “I think that one is mine.”

She took a sip from the neighbouring paper cup and shook her head. “No way.”

She held out the cup to him and he drank from the same cup also. If they were in a squad room or a bull pen this behaviour would get them nothing but side glances and knowing looks. By now, Scully didn’t care and the privacy of their office allowed certain dalliances. Certain dalliances like last week when Mulder bent her over and they had sex on the desk in the early morning hours when his libido took over. 

He nodded. “Sorry, yeah this one is mine.”

His had more sugar but the same heavy cream. Mulder glanced back at the closed office door and reached out to rub his thumb across her hip. 

“You left without saying goodbye,” he said referring to last night. “I hate you for that.”

“Why?” she asked as she pushed his hand away but her fingers looped his.

“I wanted to say good morning,” he whispered. 

Her eyes caught the look in his and her cheeks flushed.

“You can tuck me in and say good night,” she said with a raised eyebrow. 

Mulder smiled. “On a school night?”

Scully nodded. “I can change the rules.”

Mulder cleared his throat and shook his head. Guessing was good.


	39. Season 7, Requiem Missing Scene

Scully looked at the stick between her shaking fingers and wondered how this was possible. The back of her neck was sweating and she could feel a drip of perspiration running down her front and between her breasts. Breasts that would feed a baby. An actual baby.

Maybe her cancer had come back and this was a warning sign. It would be more likely she would fall out of remission than get pregnant. They took her ova, they tore her body of the chance to make and give birth to her own babies. But there were two lines on a stick that said otherwise.

After Mulder tucked her into bed in Bellefleur, he went out to the pharmacy to ask for a second opinion. Vertigo, crankiness, fatigue, tender breasts and nausea.

Scully didn’t think Mulder noticed her running off to the bathroom to vomit a few times over the last couple of days and he didn’t make the connection toward anything else because it wasn’t in the morning. Morning sickness should stick to the morning not anytime between 6 am and 9 pm.

He came back with gingerale, saltine crackers, and four pregnancy tests.

She argued her taking a test would be a cruel thing to do and Mulder said that every scientist should exhaust all possibilities before ruling out what isn’t known. She wanted to slap him across the face.

“I’m pregnant,” Scully managed to say out loud.

“What’s that?” Mulder called through the door.

A tentative hand opened the door and found Mulder sitting on the end of the bed. The television was off and he looked hopeful and expectant.

“I’m pregnant,” she said and held up the four test sticks.

His face lit up as though she had just told him that aliens were real, grey and here to save humanity from impending doom. He looked at her like he just won the lottery but a man like Mulder wouldn’t care about such materialistic winnings. He won something better. A baby.

“This is… okay?” Scully hesitated.

“We did it!” Mulder said in mixed disbelief and joy. He scooped her up into his arms and kissed her all over her face. When he was done reacting knelt down to the floor and brought his face right to her belly where something inside of her that didn’t have ears was trying to grow. “I love you and your mother very much. I’ll always be here.”

Scully face flushed and she ran her hands through his hair. This was a good thing.


	40. Season 8, Existence

She dug her fingernails into her palms and took calming breaths. She walked around the apartment and tried to focus on William but she could only think of what was coming. 

It wasn’t fair. He was just resurrected from the dead and now she was going to lose him all over again. Because of this cause, this thing he was fighting for and because he was trying to protect her. And their son. 

She was a logical person. She thought everything through and looked at the angles of each scenario. When she asked him to help her have a baby, she did not anticipate they would have made a child super-soldiers, the consortium and little grey men would want to harm or prevent from being born. Who would have seen that?

Mulder might have, now that she thought about it.

Scully tossed the used diaper into the waste bin and burped William before laying him down in his bassinet. He was a good baby. He liked to sleep and he smelled intoxicating. 

It reminded her of the first time Scully donned one of Mulder’s sweaters and the scent of his aftershave lingered on the collar. Except this didn’t excite her secretly. It calmed her and soothed her anxious nerves. They were frayed from their fight. 

He told her he could face whatever was coming and she pleaded him to leave. Of all the things Scully ever thought she would tell Mulder, asking him to leave her was not ever one she imagined. She couldn’t imagine leaving him either. They were better together. They were stronger, smarter and made each other better. She knew he needed her. 

As she closed the door on the nursery she jumped when she saw him standing in the hall. He was watching her. 

“You know, it’s okay to cry,” he whispered. 

She looked up at him with the defiant jaw and stiff upper lip all Scully’s had. “I know.”

Mulder pulled her to his chest and he held her. “I’m sad too.”

“You are?” she asked. 

She pulled away slightly to look up into his eyes. She could see everything in there. As subtle as his panic was she could also see anger, regret and frustration. Soon there would be resentment and longing.

“I want to stay. Don’t ask me to leave and then be shocked I don’t want to go.”

A tear dared to fall down her cheek and he wiped it away. “Change your mind?”

“Mulder I can’t have you in danger of jail or prosecution for something you didn’t do, especially when we don’t know who to trust anymore,” she reminded him. “You can’t stay.”

Mulder pointed behind her to the door. “I would be in jail for you. For him.”

Another tear fell and this time she let it.


	41. Pre IWTB, 2003

The air was dry and thick with dust mites that flew through the beams of sunlight. Hiding out in Arizona after Christmas somehow was extended through February. They were both sick of the cold nights and warm days, but mostly they were just tired of being everywhere but home. They were tired of calling each other by different names except for the privacy of their room. 

Scully looked around the dirty kitchenette and grumbled at the take out containers on the counter. Living with Mulder on the run was not much better than being on the road with Mulder at work. The man had poor housekeeping skills and she cursed his dead mother for not teaching him to pick up after himself. She rebuked herself for the thought immediately but he was a grown man and this was ridiculous.

She polished off the last of her coffee and washed her mug out. It took her thirty seconds to wash and put away the item and she pointedly left the remainder of the dishes in the sink for Mulder to tend to. He had promised he would wash them. Four days ago. 

“I’m off!” she called to a closed bathroom door. He only did that when he was sitting down on the toilet so she tried not to linger. 

Mulder pulled the bathroom door open and she frowned. He still hadn’t shaved his mustache and she hated the way he looked with it on. His arms and face were tanned from the hot sun he worked in all day and he had a bandanna over the mop of chestnut hair he was growing out. 

“Already?” he asked as he took in her appearance. 

She was in scrubs and working under a pseudonym at the free clinic downtown. Turns out if you’re willing to help the downtrodden and invisible, they don’t care to see your medical license. She was warned, They’re at risk patients, they’re dirty, smelly and aggressive at times. But Scully found them to be generally easy to work with as long as she looked them in the eye and paid them their due respect. Give it to get it, as Ahab always said. Melissa turned that into a dirty joke when they were teenagers and sex was still somewhat a mystery. 

“If I’m the first one there they don’t care I’m not the first one to leave,” she reminded him. “Unless..”

“No, tonight is still a go,” Mulder nodded and put a hand on her hip. He kissed her lips and she tasted the Colgate toothpaste he used in counter balance to the Crest she liked. “I’ll see you later.”

It didn’t take her long to settle into the day and forget about what their predicament. Patients in, patients out. Lunch break for twenty minutes and back to work. She walked by the market to pick up fresh vegetables for dinner and a bottle of wine and prayed the maid had tidied up the room a little because she knew Mulder wouldn’t. 

But what she walked into was candles lit all over their hotel room like she walked into a romantic movie and not her reality with fugitive on the run. The bed was made bed with flowers petals laid out and Mulder stood in front of her with clean shaven face and a fresh hair cut. The room was clean and she wondered if he spent the entirety of the day working on only this. 

“Mulder-” she started but her voice caught. He took the groceries from her and kissed her quickly. “What - what- what did you do?”

“Happy Birthday,” he whispered. 

Her new identity had a birthday in June and this gesture was risky at best. 

“I know we said we shouldn’t do this,” he started as he approached her. “I know this isn’t something we usually do. But it’s your actual birthday and god dammit I’m glad you’re here with me.”

“You did all of this for me?” she asked gesturing to the room.

“You did everything else for me,” he replied and kissed her softly. “Thanks for coming on the run with me, partner. Happy birthday.”

She let him kiss and undress her. She let him wash away the day in a bubble bath that made more of a mess than they anticipated. She let him feed her full of her favourite take out and she let him tidy off the bed because making love on top of rose petals wasn’t really practical.


	42. Pre IWTB, 2005

He was livid. He was never really mad at her but now he was livid. Of all the stupid stunts she had ever pulled, this was the dumbest. The absolute dumbest. 

He caught himself for a moment. He usually was the one doing a stupid, outrageous stunt when it came to their work and finding the truth. This was different. This was risky and could land both of them in jail. 

“You did WHAT?”

“I called Bill, and my mom,” she repeated simply.

“Scully… We just got here,” he said in disbelief. “That house we looked at might not be a good idea to buy it and you called your family!”

Scully sat down on the couch in the apartment they were renting. She was ready to start working at Our Lady of Sorrows in the next month and they hadn’t been contacted by the federal government searching for Mulder in over a year but he was still paranoid. He had every reason to be.

“I miss my mother,” she admitted. “I don’t know how long-”

She stopped herself from completing the thought. He knew what she was thinking. He sat down on the couch next to her as he felt his anger dissipate.

“Can we trust Bill?” he asked. 

It wasn’t out of malice or some dig at her brother. 

“They know the party line if they’re asked. You’re long gone, left in New Mexico and I haven’t heard from you since,” she assured him. “He asked me if I was happy because if we were together or not, that was all that mattered.”

They had safeguards, back up plans and rendezvous points for what if scenarios they hadn’t needed after the first year on the run. They had fake ID’s, worked with cash and had money wired to them in small increments by a trusted lawyer. It wasn’t much of a life the last five years but sometimes it felt as close to normal as it could. 

He pulled her towards him and rubbed his hand along her back. “If you’re not happy-”

“Don’t. I chose you a long time ago. I wouldn’t be happy without you.”

He kissed her softly. “Okay. Tell Bill I said hi.”

“Maybe don’t push it,” she warned him and he nodded.


	43. Pre IWTB, 2007

Scully hopped as she attempted to pull her other heel on with her left foot behind her. The black cap-sleeve dress flowed around her hips and while she loved the look of it, she also felt uncomfortable and out of place. Her long hair was pulled up into a french twist and she had the diamond earrings Mulder got her for her last birthday. 

The invitation said “Black Tie, Formal” and her attendance was mandatory. To acquire further funding for her newest research project she would attend an evening with potential donors among several other staff members. Surprisingly enough, the administration at Our Lady of Sorrow’s didn’t believe that prayer solved everything and forced their doctors to solicit funding and grants where they could. 

This Saturday event would be at a country club with champagne and puffed chests at the charity of their actions. Mulder would scoff at the fancy food and the redundancy of spending money on an event to raise money for those who needed treatment. Scully agreed but she rationalized herself that the end justified the means. 

She applied the last layer of her blush coloured lipstick and put it into her small clutch along with a protein bar and her cell phone. 

Scully made her way down the stairs, carefully to see the television illuminating the living room and Mulder with a bowl of popcorn and a beer. This was his Saturday routine. 

“Why are you dressed like that?” Mulder asked from the couch. “Bring your pretty little butt over here.”

She looked over to the screen to see Rugby on the screen. “Who are you watching?”

“Bedford Blues against London Welsh,” he said as he got off the couch to join her in the kitchen. “Hey, where are you going? I said black tie dinner was Thursday.”

“I told you I have that fundraising dinner tonight,” she reminded him and he nodded as though he remembered but she was sure he didn’t. “My project?”

Mulder nodded this time and she could tell he recalled something of their conversation two weeks ago when she mentioned it over dinner. “You got a date for this thing?”

Scully raised an eyebrow. “No.”

“I could shower and shave, wear sunglasses all night and go as your Matt Murdock,” he suggested but she knew that was an empty offer he couldn’t follow through on. 

The FBI hadn’t come knocking at their door for a while but it didn’t make Mulder any less a wanted man.

“You want to risk it, Mulder?” she asked knowing the answer was no. She made her way to the front closet to find her wrap. 

“I would,” he offered as he watched her walk. “Just to keep those donors from getting any ideas. The way you walk in that dress is criminal, Scully.”

Scully appreciated the compliment but the men and women who were in control of the grants committees weren’t the type to appreciate a nice backside. These were philanthropists who were there to be appreciated for any and all contributions while having smoke blown up their asses about their charitable contributions. She knew what to expect.

“Mulder,” Scully admonished. 

That Mulder meant you’re wrong but he would later be proven right as usual. She would find herself talking with a potential donor in two hours time and attempting to dissuade his advances and invitations to a private dinner. 

“Don’t be sore at me,” Mulder said with a shrug as he came up behind her and ran his hands up the front of her dress. “You should blame this dress.”

He kissed the back of her neck and she leaned into him for a brief moment. 

“Stop,” she whispered and his hand stilled on her breast. “I have a car coming to pick me up in ten minutes.”

Mulder’s hands moved to her hips and bunched the material in his fingers. “I’ve been known to do some incredible things in nine minutes. Wanna lose nine minutes with me, Scully?”


	44. Pre IWTB, Stargazing

It started off as a thing they did when they first left their life behind and he couldn’t be seen during the day. They had to make the most of their nights.

He would wake her up and they would sit by motel pools or on the hood of the car and try to find constellations they knew. Mulder would make up names and stories about the ones they didn’t. They were always about Scully, somehow.

When they found the house in Virginia, Mulder noted the house was the perfect distance from the city to get in good stargazing.

After their first month in the house, Mulder found a thick wool blanket and propped the ladder up against the low part of the house. He made hot chocolate in a thermos (not hard to do, with hot water and the powdered mix) before dragging Scully out of bed.

“Get dressed,” he urged, that familiar two word sentence always preceded an insane request.

“No,” she mumbled into the pillow.

“Get dressed,” he repeated.

She opened one eye and saw he was in jeans and a thick coat.

“Where are you going?” She asked, sitting up in bed.

“I’ll show you when you get dressed,” he replied and she had half a mind to throw her pillow at him.

They were safe there. No one knew he was with her. Where could be be dragging her off to now?

Scully met him downstairs in jeans, thick socks in hand and a warm sweater. “What is it?”

“Meet me outside. Put your shoes on,” he said. The urgency in his voice gave her a knot in her stomach and she followed him out to the front porch.

Mulder was waiting by the ladder and his face was as bright as the day he saw their son in her arms. It was a face mixed with wonder and joy.

“It’s a meteor shower,” Mulder said and pointed up. “Come on.”

Scully donned her knit cap and climbed up the ladder after him. He had a blanket laid out for them and sat herself far enough away from the edge of the roof to feel safe. Getting down would be a problem.

The cool wind bit at her nose and she pulled her jacket tighter around her. Mulder draped a blanket over her legs and sat behind her, warming her from all sides.

“Hot chocolate?” He offered, holding up the thermos. She nodded and he opened the container for her.

She secretly liked the powdered hot chocolate mix because it reminded her of cheap diners after chasing monsters in the woods with him. Even when he was dragging her all over the country to look at conspiracies they had each other. Just like now, but with a lot more sex.

“Look!” Mulder pointed up to see the first shooting star fly by. “If we wait we should see about 20-30 of them tonight.”

It was cold as anything, out in the middle of no where, on a roof but it was one of the most romantic moments they had shared together. For two people who couldn’t go on dates, this was a really great date.

She told him that and he kissed her cheek tenderly, his legs encompassing hers to ensure she stayed warm.

“I love you,” he whispered in her hair.

Scully looked up to the sky. The meteors flying through space, far enough away to remain safe and close enough to reveal its beauty.

“I love you too,” she whispered back.


	45. Midnight Snacks

When he wakes up it’s because he feels the bed is different and he realizes it’s because she’s not in it. He dons his underwear, foregoing a t-shirt, and makes his way down the stairs to find her in the kitchen, sitting on the counter in her bright red UMD t-shirt and not much else.  
  
She looks up from where he is standing in the entry way and smiles, holding up the small container of chocolate coconut milk ice cream. “I got hungry.”  
  
Mulder blinks at the bright lights of the kitchen contrasting against the darkness that envelops the rest of the house. One hand scratches the back of his head and he pads his way across to the tile to freezer to find his own brand of sweet confectionery. Peanut butter chocolate chocolate. The caloric value of one scoop is almost equal to three bowls of what she’s holding in her hand but he can’t stomach anything less than full-fat anything.  
  
Mulder pulls out a spoon from the drying rack off the sink and hops up on the counter next to her.  
  
“Want a bite?”  
  
He always offers her some of his before he dives in, no matter what they’re eating. It started off as a way to see what he could tempt her with when they were just friends, just partners and their longing for one another was pushed to a back burner while the truth was on the forefront. He liked to watch her decide if she would break the strict diet she kept herself on and take a bite or a sip of whatever he had, close her eyes in ecstasy as the sugar, salt or fat rushed through her system. She would indulge two or three bites before holding up a well-manicured hand and saying “no more, Mulder.”  
  
Scully dipped her spoon into the small tub of ice cream and took a small spoonful of the chocolaty frozen dessert, her eyes holding his gaze as she popped it into her mouth. Her eyes close and she revels at the taste.  
  
Peanut butter and full-fat ice cream is not a luxury she allows normally, especially mixed together. But after their bedroom acrobatics tonight she allows the leniency from the coconut milk to his choice of treat.  
  
Mulder takes a spoonful for himself and sets the tub between them so they can share, noting that her container has been set down.  
  
There were times when he worried about her eating enough, watching her snack on bee pollen and yogurt as a “super-food” while sneaking off to the gym at lunchtimes. He wished he could have told her then that the curves she was trying to combat were his favourite physical attribute.  
  
“Good,” he says after his first bite and she nods.  
  
“What woke you?” He knows that it’s not hunger that wakes her up in the middle of the night.  
  
It’s wondering if he’ll be discovered there on the home they’re hiding away on. He knows she has had to lead a life of loneliness since they ran from the FBI. He can’t take her to Christmas parties for the hospital staff or into the city for a weekend. The long term isolation they agreed to for him is actually one they’re both sentenced to.  
  
“I just wondered,” she started and set her spoon down. “I just wondered if it’s been long enough.”  
  
“I guess we won’t know until they drop the charges,” he says and runs a hand across the beard he’s started growing. It marks her alabaster skin and she says she doesn’t mind it, yet. It’s still short.  
  
“It’s 2007. I thought if they had any real worries about what happened…”  
  
“Scully,” he interrupts the thought. “You know they’ll never stop until they have someone to prosecute for the death of a man we both know can’t die.”  
  
“I keep expecting Skinner to call me to tell me it’s over,” she says and leans her hands back on the counter.  
  
“Do you think it’s a matter of if or a matter of when?” he is curious to know what she’s expecting.  
  
The FBI stopped contacting her a year after they moved into this house. Two years after they went on the run.  
  
“I think it’s a matter of when,” she said. “I can wait.”  
  
Mulder knew she had patience. The woman waited two years between their first almost kiss and their first affirmative kiss. He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers, a thank you would never be enough.  
  
“Okay.”


	46. Set Pre IWTB, 2007

The alarm on her phone rang every morning at 5:45 a.m. whether she worked the night before or not. She wasn’t good at remembering to shut it off and at this point they both had come to expect the disruption in their sleep.

During the summer the sun and the neighbouring fowl woke them up before her alarm had a chance. This was the fall and the sun rose a little later but the roosters next door didn’t.

Scully pulled her pillow over her head and groaned into the mattress while Mulder grumbled about “Satan’s chickens” and pressed himself into her. He was hot when he slept but still felt drawn to her. Such as it was in life.

“As a wanted man I could still easily purchase a hand gun and shoot those things,” Mulder grumbled into her hair. His hand found it’s way to her backside and he gave it a squeeze. “Want me to kill a rooster?”

“Yes,” she sighed and rolled over to face him. “Would you?”

“For you, I’d do anything,” he promised and kiss her collarbone. “I’d run away with you if you asked me to.”

The alarm sounded on her phone and she reached over to her night stand to hit the button to quell the noise.

“I thought you were off today,” Mulder said as he watched her pad toward the bathroom.

He would prefer when she was naked in the morning but he was only blessed with that sight from late spring to early fall. This was late fall and they were suffering an early cold snap. She might start going to bed with a housecoat on soon.

“I have a patient coming in this morning I want to see to his admittance but then I’m free,” she replied.

A young boy about 9 years old and he had Sandhoff’s. She didn’t mention any further details to Mulder but he didn’t ask because it was hard for him to hear about her saving other people’s children. He didn’t know why she chose to punish herself like that.

“I have a package that should be at the PO box today,” Mulder called to her.

Scully came back from the bathroom with her toothbrush in her mouth and narrowed her eyes. It was risky when he did such things and she knew he grew restless being held up in the house.

“What kind of package?” she asked.

“Nothing dirty,” he assured her. Scully disappeared back to the bathroom and Mulder found her turning on both shower heads. “Can you make a trip?”

Scully pulled her camisole over her head. “I could be convinced.”

His face lit up and he grabbed his toothbrush to make himself more desirable before joining her in the shower. It took them thirty minutes to run out of hot water and achieve almost a mutually timed orgasm with a well positioned maneuver they seemed to have perfected over the last four years.

Mulder made the coffee while Scully readied herself for a trip into the hospital. He liked to watch her prepare herself for the day as she tried to make herself look less desirable to fit in with the other doctor’s at Our Lady of Sorrow’s. As she covered her form with scrubs he liked to reassure her that she was beautiful no matter what she attempted with loose braids and low heel shoes.

“I’m not a better doctor if people think I’m beautiful Mulder,” Scully told him after he complimented her when she walked into the kitchen.

He handed her a mug and she took a tentative sip.

“Do you know it probably makes people feel better to be around someone like you,” he said as he took out eggs from the fridge.

“Mulder,” she admonished but he could see her blushing. She handled compliments the same now as she did when they first became more romantically involved.

“I like that you don’t believe that you’re beautiful as much as you don’t believe in aliens,” Mulder said as he handed her the cantaloupe to cut up. “You have eyes to see it but you still deny it.”

“When have I seen an alien?” Scully asked as she pulled the cutting board from under the sink.

“How much time do you have?” Mulder scoffed and they laughed.

“I can stop in the post office on my way home,” she offered and he kissed her cheek in thanks.

Their breakfast was enjoyed in the dining room in quiet as they read the paper and finished their first pot of coffee. On mornings Scully left early, Mulder would leave a mess of plates and glasses around the house. When she was present he tried to be more aware but his habitual nature to leave dishes by the sink or unwashed on the stove.

Over the years she tried to adjust slightly to his nature as much as he tried to adjust to hers but there was still some skips on the path.

“I’ll be home in a few hours,” Scully said as she donned her jacket. She pulled her long hair from under her collar and looked around the living room. “Are you going to shave today?”

“I thought you liked a man with a beard,” Mulder said as he rubbed the stubble on his jawline.

Scully pulled on her collar and showed him the red marks. “I do, my skin doesn’t.”

She kissed him good-bye in their typical fashion and Mulder watched from the office window as she made her way down the long driveway, close the gate and head into the hospital.

Mulder would spend the morning looking through the stack of newspapers they had delivered for interesting articles. He had started quite the collection along the office walls. He took out articles that had any trace of the paranormal. Stories that used to prompt a cross country flight and an investigation into what would confirm there was more than what science told us in textbooks.

On days she was in the mood for discussion he would discuss what was going on in the world that he was forbidden from exploring. A man like Mulder needed to be able to leave the house and see the world. Who needed federal prison when you were locked inside a house? At least this prison had better bunk mates and decent food.

He already knew that if she was admitting a patient her face would be buried in text books, issues of JAMA or she would be browsing the web for articles related to her patient. His heart ached how much she would bleed for her patients if it meant she could save every single one of them.

It surprised him when she came home a little after noon. It obviously surprised her when the house was in a better condition to when she left. Clean kitchen, fresh coffee on and a tidy living room to drop her things in.

“What’s up, Doc,” Mulder greeted as she joined him in the office.

“I got your package,” she greeted.

“And how,” he retorted as in innuendo to their earlier shower activities. “Oh you mean from the post office. Where is it?”

“It’s in my car,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you about the return address before I brought it in.”

“It’s just files from Skinner,” Mulder reassured her. “I wrote to him, as you, hoping to get some old stuff.”

“Mulder,” she admonished. “I can’t begin to tell you how dangerous something like that is.”

“Then don’t,” he said as he made his way to the door. “Back seat or the trunk?”

“Trunk,” she sighed. “Get the groceries from there too, please.”

Mulder obliged and she made them a lunch of soup and sandwiches. He insisted they look through the files on a full stomach and she agreed to two hours of discussion if they watched her movie that night. Mulder appreciated how she bartered because her movies usually meant popcorn and a glass of wine or two. It meant making out on the couch after a good dinner and she always was agreeable to things after the third glass. Agreeable to things she usually declined. Things that were not approved of in the Catholic church but they didn’t talk about that much either.


	47. Scratchy Beard

The scratch from two days without shaving used to tickle and excite her. The feeling of his hair against her alabaster skin, on the places normally hidden by clothing. 

He took his prickly chin to rub it down the centre of her chest as he moved to a place he liked to call his second home. Mulder could be a little lewd and she didn’t mind it. He rubbed his stubbled cheek across the inside of her thigh and left a red mark next to where he sunk his teeth. He kissed with his mouth and tickled with his beard across her belly button where she only knew she was sensitive there because he spent the time and dedication to learn her body.

This longer beard was something else. It was hard to kiss without the longer hairs getting up her nose and tickling where she didn’t want to feel anything. He would part the hair over his lip and pull at the strays on his jowls as though he was contemplating becoming a member of ZZ top.

What Mulder was doing was building a barrier between them. He knew how much she longed for his kisses and with each new day with the beard he pushed her away. Whether he wanted to or not he was building a barrier. 

Mulder would give her a compliment with his mischievous eyes and a gentle voice as she made her coffee to take with her on her forty five minute drive to work. His eyes would travel up her fit frame in her doctor’s and she felt like he was seeing her naked for the first time as they made love. It made her want to kiss him from his compliment but the beard turned her off. It was too scratchy. 

“I can feel you thinking,” Mulder said as she laid awake thinking of Christian and worrying for her future as a doctor. She felt lost and listless and she was angry that God would give this child a disease he couldn’t be cured from. She was failing and God was rubbing it in her face.

“Sorry,” she replied. “I can’t sleep.”

“I might have a little something for that,” he told her as he wiggled over to her side of the bed and pushed his half hardened cock into her backside. 

How he did that at his age was truly a medical miracle but she didn’t care to share him with science, let alone anyone else. 

“Just a little something?” she retorted as she looked over her shoulder. He wasn’t little in any sense of the word.

“Thank you,” he replied. He always appreciated a good dick joke. “What's the matter?”

“I have a patient. A young boy with a rare brain disease,” she explained. “And he's very, very sick”

“Why haven't you told me about this before?” he asked gently but she could sense the hurt in his voice.

“I thought there was something I could do,” she said with a frown. Her heart was breaking for Christian and for all the other little kids who are given this gift only to have it soiled by a disease that man or woman could not fix. 

So they discussed the relation to William and the sadness they felt with their son. She felt the physical barrier of his scratchy beard overwhelmed by the emotional ties they had with having a child together when science said they couldn’t. 

“Just go to sleep,” he instructed gently. “Let me curse God for a while.”

“Thank you,” she said with a wavering chin. He kissed her a few times but the beard was not good. It cooled things more than it set things on fire.”Scratchy beard.”

She laughed into the pillow because she felt a little embarrassed at herself. It was the first time she stopped things between them because of the very thing he had seemed so proud of. He should be more grateful he still had all his hair. 

He got out of bed at the moment she mentioned the dog tranquilizer and began to shave off his beard. When she joined him in the bathroom she realized she had left her housecoat on in bed. She was certainly giving signals about the beard before she had said anything whether she realized it or not.

After the call from Dakota Whitney Scully looked at his half shaved face and pulled him into the bathroom. “Allow me.”

Mulder’s face lit up. “Really?”

“A car will be here in forty minutes,” she said as she picked up the razor.

Maybe she cut him once but it was unintentional and not easy to focus on her task as he rubbed his fingers against her naked sex. He put a small piece of Kleenex on the open skin after he washed his face and proceeded to make love to her against the door to the bathroom. 

She liked kissing Mulder with a clean shaven face. It reminded her of the man she first kissed on New Years 2000. The man who kissed her in the elevator at work when they were alone and the man who wore a suit and tie every day. She liked kissing the Mulder with purpose and the man who had a drive to uncover the truth. She just worried where looking into the darkness would take him and if it would pull them apart. 

It almost did. It definitely would try.


	48. IWTB

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder has a conversation in the car.

After seven years of only talking to her could anyone blame him for a slight flirtation? She believed in him and didn’t argue. She wanted to solve the case and she was easy on the eyes. He was a man at the base of all of this.

The second these rationalizations entered his head he immediately felt like an asshole for thinking it.

A name like Dakota Whitney sounded like someone from a tape he threw out January 1, 2000 and he was an asshole. He just _liked_ being heard. He _liked_ that she wanted to explore his theories.

Deep down, he knew he could go off the deep end and the reason he needed someone to have some sort of strict rationalization was to keep him grounded toward something more sane. Sure he ended up being right 98 per cent of the time but she had a lot of “I told you so” moments too. Half the time the science made him better because instead of sounding like a nut, she stood behind him with a case file full of facts to hit people across the face with. He loved Scully for that.

So why was he sitting in a car drinking coffee with Dakota Whitney with the triple X name?

Because Fox Mulder, truly and deeply, was kind of an asshole at times.

“So you go by just Mulder?” Whitney asked with a smile.

A red flag popped up. “Uh no. I mean…. Fox is a family name and where I grew up we all had funny first names.”

“So your doctor friend always calls you Mulder?” Whitney probed further.

Mulder’s cheeks flushed a little and he looked around the street where they waited for the other agents to show up. He swallowed. “No, she calls me Fox sometimes…”

Not times he wanted to share with Dakota Whitney. He could see the look on her face and recognized it now. Maybe Scully hadn’t looked at him like that in a long time and that’s why he said he was okay to ride with her but if this had been the other way around, Mulder’s territorial nature would have had a big problem with it. Scully, in a car, with another man who gave her the eyes the way this woman was looking at Mulder? That wouldn’t be okay with him.

“Oh…” Whitney nodded and stared at her coffee. “I just think it might be difficult to be with someone who doesn’t share my beliefs.”

“I’m not a person of religion but I have faith,” Mulder explained. He felt like he was defending Scully to this woman when he could have just as easily shut the conversation down. But if Scully was sitting here with anyone else, she would jump to his defense too. After fifteen years of working together, eight of those being more than partnerly activity, it was second nature. “She has her faith in God and science and it’s probably one of the most admirable things about her. She doesn’t falter when it comes to that. A lot of people do.”

Whitney nodded. “So how long were you two partners before you were-”

“Seven years,” Mulder interrupted. “But uh… I think I fell in love with her a long while before that.”

Why was he telling this woman all of this? Oh right, defense mechanism. Slow down the crush she’s developing by showing how committed you are to another woman.

Scully would explain to him later when they rehashed this conversation that certain women like men who are married or in committed relationships. It’s weird and strange, she would say, and slightly goes against what women should be doing for other women. But they become almost predatory and want a man they can see will commit. By hoping they’ll cheat it is a dichotomy but she said that basic instincts don’t often make sense. Mulder, upon hearing Scully break down the motives of other women, would find that to be more endearing and want her more then.

But he was still sitting in a car on a frozen street in Virginia with a man kidnapping people of a specific blood type.

“Can I call you Fox?” Whitney asked.

Mulder laughed nervously. “I even made my parents call me Mulder.”

Whitney looked at him. “I don’t buy that for a second but okay.”

“You know I said the same thing to Dana when we first started working together and I don’t think I’ve regretted and loved a conversation more in my life,” Mulder confessed. He shouldn’t share that with this woman either. But he should have let her call him Fox. What the hell did it matter when the woman was already inside his heart. Scully could call him Poopyhead and his heart would skip a beat.

Whitney put her hand on Mulder’s arm. “She’s a lucky woman. I hope she knows that.”

Mulder looked at Whitney squarely and nodded. “I’m the lucky one.”

A knock on the window broke the conversation in time and Whitney got word they were moving in. Just in time.


	49. Set Post IWTB

The humid air of the island left their towels and swimsuits damp but she didn’t care. That’s what long days in the sun, too many drinks with little umbrellas and sex two or three times a day did to her. The furrowed brow, tension in her shoulders and the clenched fists were left behind the minute they landed. 

Mulder rubbed a hand along her back and threw his wet suit over the drying rack. Sand covered the edges of their feet and their skin had the glow of an afternoon spent in a row-boat. 

The sheer swimsuit cover she had donned earlier that day was acting as a bathrobe, much to Mulder’s delight. It was a slim attempt at modesty whereas he preferred to walk around nude in their suite. 

He kissed the new freckles along Scully’s shoulder blades and moved his hand up to her breast. “Shower?”

Scully nodded and Mulder gave her backside a quick rub before making his way to the bathroom. She could hear him turn on both shower heads as he whistled the theme to Hawaii Five-O. 

Since they arrived in their tropical destination Mulder tried to suggest they get jobs working for the Bureau or law enforcement branch anywhere with weather like this. He said they could start up the X-Files anywhere if it meant he got to see her in a bikini during their off hours. Scully reminded Mulder the gun holster would chafe if the black bikini was the uniform he was hoping for.

The hot water was filling the room with steam and she could make out Mulder’s silhouette in the reflection of the mirror. He was now humming the theme song and she realized he was relaxed and happy too. The darkness might be waiting for them when they returned to their ordinary house but she felt the light of their escape surrounding them both like a much needed blanket on a cold night. 

When she stepped into the shower Mulder pulled her close to him and he kissed her like he had been missing her for the last five years. He kissed her with the passion and fervor he used to kiss her with when their relationship was supposed to be a secret from the FBI and they didn’t know they were making William on cool summer nights. 

His soapy hands explored the curves of her body and he pushed her up against the stone wall of the shower. It took little effort on his behalf to lift her and sink her down onto him. As they moved against one another she felt the flush of rum and sex fill her pleasure centre. He felt like everything when he was inside of her. 

The love and the lust for him could clash with her logical mind when they returned to the United States. For now she only wanted to experience all that this was. This could make up for hiding him for the last six years and lying to everyone she met. If she had to do it all over again she would always choose him and their life together. He told her as he fucked her against that tile wall with water ricocheting off his back that he would be worthy of it.


	50. Who are you Talking to?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secret phone calls, set post IWTB

Set Post IWTB:

At first she didn’t know what to think. She thought it was work, then she tried to listen in to see if it was a contact but his secrecy and his caginess about it made her think it could be another woman. 

She came down the stairs to hear him laughing that low-sexy laugh that made her tingle. He was saying yes and nodding as he twisted back and forth in his chair. He was listening intently and he looked relaxed. He looked happy. 

Why did she feel angry? She should just ask him about it because that’s what couples do. They were trying to be more like that. He was working on getting something published while she continued at the hospital but they weren’t going to put that before them as a unit anymore.

Sometimes Mulder talked so much she couldn’t get a bloody word in edge wise and now he’s listening to someone - let’s face it a woman because men rarely put up with Mulder - and he’s letting her do all the talking. What was he doing?

Scully cleared her throat and leaned against the doorway to catch his reaction. 

Mulder jerked in his chair in surprise and tried to turn his panic face into one of welcoming but he was busted. “I gotta go.”

Scully could hear a woman on the other end and she heard a familiar word. Fox. 

“Bye. Yeah.”

She willed her body into a calm but she was feeling betrayed. Her voice wavered as she asked, “Who are you talking to, Mulder?”

Mulder’s cheeks flushed. “Ummmm...”

This really bothered her. He was an open book. He told her everything and anything and usually that worked out to be a really great system. Mulder was pushing her to be more open with her feelings and while it had been a painful process, she was getting better. So why the secrecy now? 

“Really, Mulder?” she snapped. “We just got back from vacation, that book publisher you spoke with last week is out of town until the sixth. Who are you talking to?”

She didn’t wait for him to answer. She had to get to work and feel the judgmental eyes of Father Ybarra. She found her coat and bag at the front hall and Mulder caught up to her before she could open the door and he was holding the phone. 

“Press redial.” His voice was calm but there was something else in his eyes.

“It’s fine, Fox,” Scully snapped. She shook her head at herself. Deep down she despised this jealous streak in herself but she couldn’t help it all the same.

“Hey I only like it when you call me that when I’m-”

“Mulder please,” Scully cut him off.

Mulder pressed redial on the phone and showed her the display. It was her mother’s number. He hung up the phone before it could ring and he crossed his arms triumphantly.

“Stop looking pleased with yourself,” she mumbled and he uncrossed his arms. “Why are you calling my mother?”

“It started out that she was calling me,” Mulder told her and Scully’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Well.. She called for you but you were at the hospital. We talked for an hour and then she called the next week at the same time and that kept going.”

“For how long, Mulder?” she asked. 

“A while...” his eyes looked up as to count back on the calendar. “Maybe since we moved here.”

“So you’re telling me that you’ve been talking on the phone with my mother for the last three years and didn’t tell me?” she stated as though he was presenting to her case facts that she didn’t quite believe. 

Mulder shrugged. “Your mom lived all over the world, she has some great stories. We talked about books we like. She gave me that recipe for Butter Chicken you really enjoyed.”

Scully thought for a moment. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I felt weird about it,” Mulder admitted and she could see the flush creeping up in his cheeks again. “Not because I was doing anything wrong but... I don’t think I ever had conversations with my mother the way I’ve talked with yours. She’s just a really wonderful woman and she never made me feel guilty about-”

“Mulder I told you I chose this and I would choose it all over again,” she cut him off again and he nodded. “I don’t regret being on the run, or hiding you.”

“It was nice to share this secret with your mom,” he said quietly. “She never mentioned these conversations once to you?”

Scully shook her head slowly. “I guess she needed a friend too.”

Mulder pulled her to him and she felt the stiffness of her anxiety leave her body. “Are you mad?”

“Only that she’s giving you cooking tips that you took over mine,” she whispered into his chest and he laughed. “But I don’t blame you.”

Mulder kissed the top of her head. “Want a ride into work?”

Scully shook her head. “No, but you can meet me there for lunch. Give the nuns something to whisper about.”

He rubbed his hands up her back. “Should I wear the leather jacket?”

Scully looked up at him. “I’ll be disappointed if you don’t.”


	51. Post IWTB, 2011

“Put those down!” Mulder snapped at her. “I’m serious!”

It was a pile of newspapers he planned to read but hadn’t yet. They were scattered across his leather couch and she was tired of looking a room that resembled Eugene Tooms’ nest. 

Since gaining his freedom from the United States Government two years ago and trying to work on a book, Mulder had less time on his hands and it meant the newspapers he collected would often be left on stairs and all over the rest of the house. 

Scully had a few rules about cohabitation and one of them was that he had to pick up after himself. He couldn’t leave shit lying around as he liked to. Sure, since his freedom they hired a cleaning service to come by once or twice a month to scrub the toilets and dust the furniture. But the woman stated clearly she didn’t tidy up after anyone, that was their job. 

The cleaning lady was coming by tomorrow and Scully wanted all the newspapers, clippings and books Mulder found on his recent trip to town to be organized so Louisa could clean the office. 

Louisa, who was the most patient and wonderful employee to the local cleaning service, was not a fan of picking through Mulder’s papers and also that wasn’t her job. She said with her thick accent she would be happy to scrub their floors, clean their showers and dust their knickknacks but she didn’t like to pick up a mess and Scully respected that.

“Mulder, you haven’t read these ones. I got you new papers and if there’s anything notable you could always look online and find the story,” she reminded him as she picked up two more papers from last week.

“Scully!” he cried from his seat at the desk as the clippings inside spilled to the floor. “Put the fucking things down!”

She sighed heavily. “No.”

“What?”

“You’re sitting on your ass watching me do this,” she pointed out. “You know I hate to nag you about the house. Come over here and make me put them down or do it yourself.”

Mulder felt his emotions shift from anxious to playful in the way that sparring with her often did. He liked to see her fight back. He enjoyed that she pushed him and fought against him because it was better than all the times she felt placid or that she had given up.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, come over here and make me,” she challenged as she gathered more of his clippings. 

These were ones he had cut out for his idea board. 

“Scully…” his voice warned and he crossed the office to where she was picking up the small pieces of newsprint. He grabbed her wrist and he looked down at the shiny ring on her finger. “Wearing it today?”

“I wear it on non-surgery days,” she reminded him.

Papers spilled to the floor as Mulder pressed his mouth into hers. He tasted the coffee on her mouth and the cream cheese from her half a bagel she had been eating before she stormed in to scold him about the house. 

He pushed her down into the couch and they made a mess of the remaining papers left on there. He didn’t care that they got bodily fluids on carefully chosen newsprint because he wasn’t that concerned about the end arriving next year. 

She didn’t care that he made her twenty minutes later for work because Father Ybarra was on vacation so there was no one to look down their nose at her as she rushed into the morning meeting. 

She didn’t mind the burn on the skin of her neck and between her thighs from Mulder’s two-day stubble. She spent the rest of the day running a finger lightly across the skin he marked under her shirt collar and a secret smile on her face.


	52. Season 10, Post My Struggle 1

When she arrived in Philadelphia that morning she felt tense and tired, her body wired for the long day ahead but needing more energy than the six hours she got the night before and the three cups of coffee she had that morning provided her. 

The field office was in full swing at only 8:45 am and she hoped no one would pay too much attention to her at first. It had been too long since she worked in a bull pen, since she carried a gun on her hip and a badge at her breast. These compromises she made to the life she was trying to move on with were necessary. She told Mulder “someone needed to make these sons of bitches pay” and he saw the fire in her eyes he saw over twenty years ago until their own undoing.

“What’s up doc?” a familiar voice greeted and she turned from the desk with her name plate to the tall man in front of her. 

He had shaved, his hair had been trimmed a little and he was in a suit. He didn’t look like the shell of a man she argued with a week ago on their porch - scratch that, HIS porch. That man told her he knew what he was doing after he wrote messages in the dirt on her car windows. That man was bitter and broken, depressed and angry - mostly with her. After all, she was the one who left.

Not the man in front of her. This was the man she worked with twenty years ago but a little less spry and more salty coloured greys in the pepper of his brown hair. But his crazy green eyes with one wide pupil were alive and he smiled at her before cracking a shell between his fingers and teeth. 

He must have gotten these suits after he first met Tad because she doesn’t remember them. Ash grey, with an azure tie that played off each other nicely and she wanted to reach out to tug the end of it down just a little. Sometimes, when he rushed, he tied his ties just a hair too short. It was something she did when they were still in the basement. Before he made a baby grow inside her barren belly or they ran from the government. It was an uncomplicated time of sex two or three times a week, lazy weekends of shared bubble baths and release found under skilled mouths and hands. 

Those images flooded back to her and she looked down at the Jimmy Choo’s she splurged on after her last bonus from the hospital. Her pink tongue smoothed along her plump lower lip and she let out a breath.

Breathe, Dana. It’s just a shave and a suit, she rebuked herself. 

Maybe Mulder didn’t know it or maybe he had hoped it but this Special Agent, suit and tie, gun carrying and badge holding FBI agent really did it for her. 

If he put on his glasses or rolled up his sleeves she might be tempted to repeat the office performance of March 2001. The memories alone of the acrobatics that took place that night while in their office at the J Edgar Hoover Building in Washington DC still made her blush. It was adventurous and out of character and Mulder made her a joke name plate out of paper the next day, telling her he would work on the floor if it meant any repeat performances. Much to his chagrin, it didn’t happen again. Such a shame for so much ample work space. 

It had just been too long between her seeing him like this and the fire he ignited in her belly was no longer an ember but a smoldering heat. She clenched her hands into fists and dug her nails into her palms, hoping to distract herself from her own overactive libido. 

“Scully?” he prompted and she looked up at him through her lashes, hoping her face wasn’t giving away the sinful thoughts she had been harbouring just then. He cleared his throat. “You… uh, you look good in the suit.”

She swallowed and her mouth crooked up in a half smile. “Same to you, Mulder.”


	53. Season 10, I'm Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fan art by Yuukimius on Tumblr inspired this. Set during My Struggle.

It wasn’t the first time he met her in a parking garage. The Watergate Hotel, the hospital at Our Lady of Sorrows, her apartment building were just some to name a few. It wasn’t the first time he approached her car with a monologue of material he had been saving up for the next time he saw her.

He looked tired. The break they took from their life together had taken its toll on both of them but so had the years before that when she lived a lie of a solitary woman habituating normalcy in a home of a fugitive. It was anything but normal and over time that isolation was mirrored in their real lives as well.

It was hard to be together before she left but it was worse to be apart. Nothing in her life made sense without him and she was tired of trying to make it so. She wanted to come home but she wasn’t sure how to ask him. Maybe she wanted him to ask her.

The unfortunate part was that she left him and the chances of him opening himself to welcoming her back home were slim. Of course, they weren’t completely separated. They had seen one another from time to time. Coffee, long lunches, afternoons spent tangled in the sheets of her high-rise apartment bedroom with the phone buzzing her next surgery was pending and their regrets at the door. Sometimes she came back for a weekend and he left her with reminders on her skin that hospital scrubs and a prayer to God would mask for her conscience. They didn’t know how to quit each other.

She could quit the FBI and the darkness the monsters brought into their home. He could give up on a life of normalcy with her when she asked him to look away from the things that haunted society and impended over the world.

He wanted to search the darkness for light because that’s where he found her. It was unfortunate they found solace there with each other and they knew how to combat the demons and devils in life with their bodies and whispers of I love you to release. They might spend a day touseled together in a naked tango with confessions of longing to be back together but they didn’t know how to follow through to make that permanent. It was damaging to keep coming back together while they endured the worst moments of each other, only finding they still needed the other to see a glimmer of good in themselves. For whatever reason, they were bound together by more than vows and the purpose they found in their relationship endured above all else.

She still loved him with her whole heart, even when it was broken like shattered glass. Somehow, he managed to glue it together enough for her to let down her guard and invite him in.

“Skinner,” they said in unison as their phones buzzed.

“Are you ready for this Scully?” he asked her.

The darkness did things to both of them but it seemed to hurt her as it healed his psyche. He liked to peer into there and come out with an answer. She feared what they would find this time. Scientists trying to play God in backyard dog kennels or the holes in their relationship. It all hurt to think about.

Maybe it hurt the most because she felt so broken.

“I don’t think that we have a choice,” she said to him.

He clenched his fist briefly then ran his hand down the front of his green khaki jacket. “I’ll do better this time around.”

A tear fell from her cheek and she stepped toward him. “I have faith in you that you will.”

“Can you tell me how you’re feeling about how we left things?” he asked as he stepped one foot closer to her. “If you want-”

“I miss you,” she cut him off. “I miss seeing you.”

His arm enveloped her shoulders and she breathed in the scent of his cologne and laundry detergent. She tried not to feel sad to note he switched brands after she moved out.

“I’m right here,” he assured her.

She clutched the jacket in her fingers and sighed. “Stay with me, Mulder.”

He wouldn’t deny that request because it could balm the ache in his heart for missing her too. “As long as you need, Scully.”

Her eyes met his and she saw the darkening desire masked by worry. “Or I can… stay there?”

“If the memories of familiar stomping grounds aren’t too painful, I’d love it if you came home,” he whispered into her hair. “Even if it’s just for tonight.”

“We can try,” she suggested quietly.

“I’ll always try for us, Scully,” he promised. “I won’t give up again.”

That was as good of a guarantee and the most heartfelt vow that she would ever need or want.


	54. Season 10, Post My Struggle 1

He was used to spotting her across crowded rooms, police stations and hospitals. Her copper locks were the first thing to give her location away however it wasn’t just that. He could spot her anywhere. 

She was wearing her hair shorter these days and she was letting the natural curl come out to play a bit more. Mulder witnessed her trying to straighten that hair for years and the soft curls at the bottom were not out of purpose but out of convenience. 

The difference to how she looked as a doctor to how she looked as an FBI agent was not as subtle. Gone was her white doctor’s jacket, embroidered with her name, the pockets full of things like a beeper, retractable pens, thermometer, tongue depressors, her stethoscope and a small flashlight. He always liked Scully in scrubs but then again, Mulder was a bit of a pervert. He liked her in white sneakers, standing across from him with goggles on her face, telling him the science didn’t make sense or the facts where XYZ.

The tired doctor who came home to him while he was under long-term isolation, before his freedom, wasn’t that doctor. That doctor looked at him with worried eyes, sad to see where their paths had lead them.

The FBI agent that was Dana Scully was pulled together, her hair was tidy but she wore nicer shoes nowadays. He could see the gun on her hip under her tailored jacket, her lapel badge hanging from her left side. and she put her purse down on the desk they had assigned her, right across from his. He was still debating whether or not to make a battleship reference or just leave one set on her desk on evening.

With the way things were going lately, it probably wouldn’t be appropriate. He hadn’t been overly kind to her and the snide remarks slipped out like acid through his teeth. He couldn’t help himself. He wanted her back.

In an attempt to will his way out of the depression, he picked up a few new suits, some better ties and gotten himself a shave and a hair cut. At least he looked like a fucking FBI agent, he felt a little more productive instead of holed up in the house they used to share. 

He cleared his throat and decided he should talk to her. 

“What’s up doc?” he quipped as he took in the sight that was Dana Scully in blue. He liked her in blue as much as he liked her in those scrubs. 

He saw her eyes take in his appearance but he was distracted by the flush that was rising up in her cheeks. She didn’t look uncomfortable, he knew that facial expression. He wondered if she was remembering better times or - shit.

Her tongue darted out to wet her lip and he knew, she was thinking of something.

“Scully,” he started and he could see it in her eyes when she looked at him. The want was there. He cleared his throat. “You… uh, you look good in the suit.”

She swallowed and her mouth crooked up in a half smile. “Same to you, Mulder.”


	55. Season 10, Founders Mutation

He hadn’t heard from her after work all week or at all about her plans for that weekend so imagine his surprise when he turned on his television set to see her smiling face. 

She used to call him as she fixed dinner or he called her before he tried to fall asleep on his couch at a reasonable hour. Not the bedroom because that was their space and nothing made him lonelier than sleeping in that bed without her. 

This entire week had been a massive attempt at avoidance to seeing him outside of the office and now he understood why.

There she was, smiling in a crowded owners box with a tall blonde gentleman standing behind her and rubbing her back while they spoke with another couple. She looked happy. Normal like all she was missing was her 2.5 kids and a chocolate lab.

Mulder sat through an entire game of the Capitals versus the Devils for a 5-3 win for the home team. They probably won because the woman who had the greatest luck on the planet was in the stadium. 

His mind thought of extremes when she was involved, especially when it involved other men. 

What the fuck was she doing and who was that guy?

Mulder called her when the camera panned back over to the owner’s box. She was holding a champagne flute and he could see her visibly react to her phone buzzing in her coat pocket.

Her face reacted to the caller ID.

“Hello,” she answered. 

That’s how she picked up the phone now. Not with her last name because everyone in her life except him called her Dana. He did, just not when they were standing up and dressed.

“Where are you?” he asked.

Scully’s scanned the crowd and she squared her shoulders as she moved away from her date. “It’s quiet where you are so I’m guessing you’re not here.”

She disappeared from the screen and Mulder guessed she went into the private bathroom in the box. 

“Where are you?” he repeated.

“You know where I am,” she stated flatly.

For real? he thought.

“Scu-”

“No,” she interrupted. “I’m just a little busy right now. It’s work.”

Mulder thought for a moment about where she was and who she was with. He looked familiar but Mulder couldn’t quite place it. 

“Can you call me later?” he asked realizing that the man she was with worked in Organized Crime and there was possibly an undercover job going on at that very moment. 

“I’d love to,” she said lightly. 

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m better than fine,” she answered. If she said she was just fine Mulder would have been in his car faster than the last goal was scored on the Devil’s net. “Ready for bed. It’s a school night, you know.”

The conversation wasn’t adding up in his mind and he felt confused. 

“Is someone listening?” he asked.

“Probably but I didn’t want to take the chance you misunderstood,” she replied. “I’ll call you later Marty.”

Mulder’s jealousy quelled for a moment as he kept his eyes on the television screen. It flared up as he watched her join her date again and her date kissed her on the lips. 

His urge to throw his phone across the room was tempered by the tight smile he watched her give back to this mystery man. Scully’s unimpressed smile to most people looked polite and friendly while Mulder could tell when she thought something went too far. He leaned in closer to the television set and her eyes met with the camera. 

A glimmer of annoyance crossed her face before she smiled again and looked out through the crowd. 

He would call Skinner in the morning to argue about undercover assignments on her behalf but he knew the conversation would fall on deaf ears. Scully could stand up for herself but he still wanted to make the gesture and protest for being left in the dark. 

Except if he was Skinner he might not tell Mulder either. And that made things a lot worse.


	56. Season 10, Fools Rush In

He pulls her to stand in the middle of the diner; it’s one am and they haven’t slept since yesterday in the middle of the afternoon. They’re tired and feeling a little loopy but more than that they’re feeling nostalgic for all the things they used to have before everything became what it was. 

She doesn’t hesitate when he pulls her flush to him and holds her, ready to move together in a slow dance. He croons in a low timbre, his voice singing softly in her ear and she lets her head fall to his chest. 

“Wise men say,” he sings lowly. “ _Only fools rush in_.”

“Mulder,” she sighs. 

This isn’t them anymore. This isn’t their kitchen in the summer on a rainy afternoon and with an oldies mix playing off the iPod station by the paper towels. This isn’t four am in their bed when Mulder is bathing her with his tongue and whispering song lyrics as he prepares to give her the orgasm of her lifetime because she worked the last four days at the hospital and that amount of time is too much to spend apart. This isn’t them on the run, only having each other and taking extra steps no one recognizes either of them as they check into crappy motels that take cash only and have no surveillance systems along the west coast. This isn’t any of the things it was before. 

They’re working a case. They’re not lovers. They’re barely managing to be friends and he is making her remember every moment she has been trying not to feel when he looks at her with his crazy green eyes. 

“Mulder,” she says and she starts to pull away but a strong hand on her back is the only encouragement she needs to stay in that safe place she found relief in all those years. 

“Darling so it goes, some things are meant to be,” he sings. 

The diner is empty except for a few college kids, sitting with half eaten food in front of them and paying no attention to the would-be couple dancing in the aisle. 

She lets him sing to her and hold her while internally hoping he wasn’t making fun of her or will make a bad joke as a way to crack the palpable tension building between them. Unfortunately, she doesn’t get that either. 

She looked up at him as finished singing the words to a song that was the epitome of their relationship except for the title. They rushed at nothing and waited for the millennium before they finally consummated this coupling. And she spent 7 years chasing him all over the globe, 7 years of being saved by him to find herself back where they started, on opposite ends of the argument but together. 

“I think we can go back to the motel now, Scully,” he said in a low voice as the song ended. 

Her pink tongue darted out wet her lips. “Okay.”

“You could sleep in my room,” Mulder offered lightly, as though he was offering only a place to rest her head. He helped her on with her coat. 

Scully took his hand after he put on his own jacket and said with the same assuredness she did when she invited her into her bed the first night, after a failed attempt to make a baby with the science that usually saved her.

“No your room as that smell. You should sleep in mine.”


	57. Season 10, Between Founders Mutation and MSMTWM

They had been in the car for, Mulder checked his watch, six hours and his backside had officially gone numb. When Skinner invited them back to the FBI he was under the impression that pointless surveillance detail duty would not be under the umbrella of assignments they would be assigned.

You’re really wrong about that, Mulder.

In the last three weeks he had perused every file that piled up in their absence and had discarded so many unexplained phenomena. Hoaxes or false sightings didn’t require their presence or for them to fly across country. At the moment, they weren’t assigned anything and the bureau was trying to pinch a penny by utilizing agents from other departments where they could. 

Bureaucracy at its finest. 

Mulder shifted in the passenger seat in the car and tossed another sunflower seed out onto the sidewalk. Scully took a sip of her water bottle from the drivers seat and handed it across to him. He didn’t wipe the rim off before taking a sip of his own and handing it back.

They might not be the traditional sense of the word reconciled but that didn’t mean she was squeamish about his germs. In fact, if he were to classify it, it would be just as confusing as it was after they started sleeping together sixteen years ago. 

Mulder reached into the bag of snack Scully packed that afternoon and pulled out an apple.

“Hey I was going to eat that,” she spoke up. 

Mulder looked at the ambrosia apple in his hand and considered splitting it. He took a healthy bite. 

“Mulder!” she protested. 

He chewed happily on his mouthful of the juicy fruit and smiled at her. “This is a good apple, Scully. Thanks for packing it.”

“I packed that for me,” her voice said with shocked disappointment. 

He took another bite. “Honestly, so good.”

Her arm reached for the apple but Mulder held it to himself. “Mulder!”

“I just don’t think I can share this with you,” he said.

“Hey!” she reached across the car and Mulder held the item out the window. Scully lunged out of her seat and into his lap for the piece of fruit.

Mulder laughed at her sudden outburst over the fruit but her face was determined. Her knee landed on the seat between his legs as she reached out the window for the apple and Mulder maneuvered his arm backwards so she couldn’t touch his hand. 

They struggled on his seat and their bodies maneuvered together in a fashion that to an outside party would mimic car-sex. 

“You jerk!” she cried as wiggled onto his lap to land squarely astride him.

While Mulder might be in his fifties he wasn’t dead. Having his sexy partner and former/current lover/wife whatever on top of him did not prevent his anatomy from taking notice.

“Scully?” he started. 

She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked at him as she panted from the recent struggle. Possibly also from her hormones appreciating their proximity also.

Mulder’s free hand went to her hair and pulled her in for a kiss. Their mouths knew how to play against one another. Her tongue slid against his and her pelvis ground into his erection that was now filling his jeans. 

Her fingers danced up his cotton t shirt before threading into his hair to keep the kiss going. He pushed his hips up to her and they began a slow dry hump. She tasted the sweet apple on his mouth and the salt from the seeds. She tasted like home.

Out of necessity for air and their hormones almost reaching a peak that could be embarrassing to explain later, the kiss broke and they sat panting in the car. Their chests moved in unison as they tried to catch their breath. 

Mulder pulled his arm inside the car and handed her the apple. “Okay. You can have it.”

Scully put the apple in the centre console and looked into his eyes with a familiar hunger. “After.”


	58. Season 10, Are You Jealous

He brushed past her in the hallway of Quantico as she tucked her phone back in her pocket and she held her arm out to steady herself. She wasn’t supposed to have her phone on her but she was expecting a call about a recent patient’s blood work. Unlike Mulder, leaving behind what she was doing before wasn’t cut and dry. She had patients and colleagues who still asked for her. 

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said but she knew it wasn’t nothing. She knew the tone of his voice and the clenched jaw meant something else entirely.

“What’s going on with you?” She reached to tug him closer to her and he tensed at the contact. “Mulder?”

“Who was that?” he asked.

“Dr Fitzwallace,” she answered. “You met him two years ago at the Christmas party.”

Mulder put his hand on his faux-gun that was required for everyone at the training facility. Even though they were just going through the qualifiers to be registered fit for duty they had to follow those rules. Mulder was slowly realizing the hoops required to come back to the X-Files was going to require more than a signature. They needed to make it all kosher. 

“Right,” he nodded.

“Mulder?” Scully studied his face. “Wait a minute. Are you jealous?”

“Certainly not, Dana,” he emphasized her given name and she rolled her eyes. 

“You could have called me that starting twenty three years ago but you didn’t want the intimacy of some spy calling you Fox,” she snapped back. 

She was right about that part. He had admitted that part to her soon after they started sleeping together. By then it felt weird to call him that. Until she called him Fox when it was intimate and needed. Those times felt even more personal than when she held his member between her lips and tasted him. 

“If you’re jealous of Dr Fitzwallace or Tad O’Malley you should stop,” she said tersely. 

“I’m never going to stop being jealous of men who have uncomplicated relationships with you,” he admitted. “They get the Dana I never got.”

Scully moved her hand down his arm and linked her fingers into his. “I don’t care what we call each other. And this really isn’t the place to remind you that I was always myself with you.”

His eyes searched the quiet hallway and then down to her face. “Except when you left.”

She nodded and a tear fell down her cheek. 

That wasn’t really in her character to quit on them. Not after all they had done but she felt the darkness was too much. She couldn’t talk to him. He was spiteful and paranoid to a degree she couldn’t fathom living with any longer. It was the anger and hate that caused the resentment between them. 

“I’m sorry.”

Mulder kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry I made you go.”


	59. Season 10, MSMTWM

“You forget, I’m immortal,” she said as she poked him playfully in the chest. 

That statement hung on to Mulder’s thought process for the rest of the day and until the late evening when he came back from shaking hands with a honest to goodness were-monster who was about to hibernate for thousands of years. 

When he arrived at their new hotel room he found Scully still in her suit and watching a late night talk show with Daggoo curled up on a dog-bed near the couch. 

“I didn’t forget what Clyde told you,” Mulder said as he reached into his suit pocket and found a few stray seeds. “I just didn’t think you took it to heart.”

“I wasn’t trying to be reckless,” she said with a shrug. “I was trying to solve this case Mulder but you kept ditching me.”

Mulder pushed off his shoes and loosened his tie. “Guy Mann is hibernating for ten thousand years. He’s turned back into his horned non-lizard humanoid sized state of being and we shouldn’t hear from him again.”

Daggoo grunted from his slumber on the dog bed and Scully grinned knowingly at Mulder. “Daggoo and I share the same sentiment.”

“Don’t forget that the true monster lied within Pasha,” he countered as he held up one finger in the air as he did while making declarations of the world and society. He glanced over to her and noticed she was smiling and took solace in the fact that she was still enjoying herself. 

Scully turned off the television and turned to him. “If you’re sleeping over you need to mess up your bed for the maid.”

“I haven’t forgotten how this works,” he reminded her as he picked up her room key. “I’ll be back in ten.”

He kissed her softly before leaving her to set up his room as a staged night of singular slumber. When he returned she was wearing his Knicks shirt and nothing else. Mulder made a comment as he slid under the covers next to her about her road time lingerie being improved on since their old cases and she tugged on his bright blue underwear. 

“I could say the same about you,” she said as she snapped the waistband of his shorts.


	60. Season 10, Set Post MS2

Scully spread herself on the fleece blanket with the spring air surrounding her and warming her skin. A breeze blew through the valley of their property and she could hear the waves of the little lake on their property as they attempted to be more than just ripples on the water.

Mulder approached from down the shoreline with Daggoo trotting in front and she could hear him whistling. This was the stuff she knew was inside them when things were bad. She knew things could get better and they could be happy again here.

Too bad it took finding their son, an attempt at reconciliation that he wasn’t ready for, creating a cure for Mulder, and a brief stint with military scientists to help save mankind. For all they had been through, at least they were able to find one another again.

“I just got a text from William,” Mulder said as he showed her he screen on his phone.

Scully propped herself up on her elbows and took in Mulder’s appearance. He was looking healthier and she thanked whatever science she had manipulated and God they were able to locate William to create the cure for him. She couldn’t do the rest without him. Finally putting his father in a prison instead of the cushy home he hid away in was the nail in the coffin to all their issues. They agreed to work through what they could and put the rest in the past.

The hiccups to move beyond were minor. The country was still healing and there was a safety issue however it as ultimate moment of “don’t say I told you so” in their relationship.

“Is he still coming over for dinner?” she asked.

They were trying to slowly rebuild that bridge but he was reluctant. If it wasn’t for a supportive family in his home, they might never hear from him.

Mulder laid down on the blanket next to Scully while Daggo went in search of grasshoppers to hunt. She could see his bottom wiggling as he prepared to pounce.

“He said he’ll be here at six. Caroline and Jack aren’t staying this time,” he informed her. Mulder’s mind immediately switched from the discussion to the skin he could see. His finger reached out to tug on the neckline of her sundress and another button popped open. “I hope you’re not wearing that at dinner.”

Scully looked down at the apple green frock she was wearing and frowned at him. “Why?”

Mulder leaned across the blanket and kissed the skin on her shoulders. The strap slid down further. “It’s distracting.”

“Distracting for who?” she asked as she reveled in the sensation of his mouth on her. After sixteen years he still excited her.

They both glanced down between them to where Mulder’s desire was now tenting in his shorts. She looked at his face and his eyes were hooded with want for her.

“If you keep looking at me like that we won’t make it to a bed,” she warned as she reached between them. She could feel every ridge through the material and her body suddenly felt ready for him.

“Who needs a bed?” he whispered as his fingers slid under the skirt of her dress.


	61. Season 10, Scully's Birthday

Mulder brings flowers to the office because their living situation is still kind of wonky but they’re getting there. She was early that day because her new routine of taking Daggoo for a run before work makes her get up forty five minutes earlier than him. Today her dog wanted to sleep in so she had the time to arrive before him.

He makes her blush when he hands her the non fat toffee nut Americano misto, extra hot and a birthday card. He’s so proud of himself. She thinks it’s adorable.

She’s wearing that burgundy skirt with the gold zipper up the back and a white blouse. On anyone else that outfit might be professional but she’s been doing that thing by leaving one too many buttons undone that gives him a glimmer into her cleavage and today he can see she’s donned the nude lace bra. He loves that bra.

They make small talk while their minds wander to extra curricular activities they can perform later, their eyes wandering over to the back part of the office Mulder had taken and possessed her once or twice. It broke fifteen FBI regulations but at the time she didn’t care.

Mulder handed her a framed plaque.

“What is this?” She asked as she set down her coffee.

“The necklace your mother was wearing, the date had significance but it took a little sleuthing on my part,” Mulder explained.

Mulder had learned that Ahab’s boat docked that day, he proposed in a diner outside the naval base and Maggie had said no. Apparently turning men down for proposals ran in the family. He asked her eight more times until she said yes. Being in love with tenacious and stubborn men was also a Scully-family trait. Mulder had the story printed up and a picture of her parents in the centre of the frame. They looked so young and happy.

Deciding it was worth breaking a few rules, Scully set the plaque down and kissed him properly and fully on the mouth.

Kisses turned fervent and he bravely put one hand on her backside as she clutched at the material of his tie and thread her other hand through his hair.

When he took her for lunch they took a detour to her apartment where he tasted every inch of her and made her uncharacteristically squeal in delight. It was her birthday so it was warranted.

Scully gave Mulder a present that day also. She showed him the name next to her apartment number that now said “Scully/Mulder : 6F”

“Really?”

“Our home… The house an hour away isn’t really practical for an every day commute,” she pointed out.

Mulder smiled at her. “Okay then.”


	62. Happy Birthday, Mulder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quiet morning at the ordinary house.

He padded into the kitchen with just his boxer shorts on and sleep still clouding his brain. Fifty-five didn’t come with new aches and pains in the morning yet but he was sure that was on its way. His body had been through enough this year that his advancing age could take a back seat to reminding him of that. 

The alien virus that took a million lives worldwide had turned Mulder into a coma patient for almost as long as he was buried with a tombstone. It took extreme anti-viral medicine mixed with William’s DNA on a steady drip. 

As he reached for his favourite mug he could see the scar from where the IV had been under his skin for that extended time. He rubbed the spot and looked up to the God she believed in as a thanks. 

If aliens could wipe out half the planet in an attempt to colonize and take over, God could be real too. Nothing was out of the realm of possibility. 

Last year when he awoke on his birthday he asked for her to come home and she hesitated to say yes. This year on his birthday he might ask her to wear her ring again. It might be a tad manipulative since it was his birthday but Mulder didn’t care. They were living together again and this time, it was as a family. 

He poured a mug for them both, added cream to hers and left his black. An itch tickled at his calf and he used the top of his other foot to scratch at it lazily. As he turned around, he became aware that he wasn’t alone.

“Good morning,” he greeted.

“Good morning, uh… Mulder,” William greeted. 

Mulder looked down at his state of undress. William had the decency to put on a shirt at least. “I didn’t realize you were up.”

William ran a hand through his chestnut hair and shook his head. “Just did. I don’t think Dana is yet.”

There was a beat of silence and Mulder cleared his throat. It was still awkward and tense at times with them. William seemed to forgive Scully easier than he forgave Mulder but mothers were different. Mulder knew that.

William cleared his throat. “Can I get a cup?”

Mulder stepped aside from the coffee maker and headed toward the stairs with their coffees. As he turned around to see William scratching his left calf with the top of his right food and clear his throat he knew he wasn’t so far off from being just a man in the same house. The genetic markers, the dark hair and eyes were the same. William had more of Mulder in him than the teen cared to admit.

“Uh.. Mulder?” William said as he turned around. 

Mulder nodded. “Yeah?”

“Happy birthday,” he said slowly. “Dad…”

A slow grin crept up on his mouth. “Thanks.”

William passed him to sit on the couch on the living room. The sound of the news filled the downstairs and Mulder realized he had to carry on as though that olive branch was minor. He couldn’t just shrug it off. He had to wake up Scully and tell her everything.


End file.
